Teaching the Game: A collection of syllabi for game design, development, and implementation, Vol. 1

I

Business, Health, and Humanities

1

Play and Society (CTK 359/460.1)

Sercan Şengün

Sercan Şengün[1]

Illinois State University

Course Title: Creative Technologies (CTK) 359/460.1: Play and Society

Course University: Illinois State University

Course College/School: Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts / Wonsook Kim School of Art

Course Department/Program: Creative Technologies Program

Course Level: The course is offered both on undergraduate (359) and graduate (460.1) levels

Course Credits: 3

Course Length: 16-weeks

Course Medium: The course has been taught both in face-to-face and blended/hybrid formats

Course Keywords: play, culture, gender, identity, simulation, history, media, expression, social, learning

Catalog Description

Play and Society provides an historical and cultural perspective on play, playfulness, lusory attitude, games, and other forms of mediated playful cultures. The course examines the present state and future directions of paper, card, and board games; physical games; simulations and interactive art; performative, public, and expressive playfulness; and video games and esports. Students imagine playful artifacts, products, and games for the purposes of cultural communication, art, activism, learning, and societal impact, as well as creating text- or video-based analyses and critique to disseminate through publications, communities, or social media channels.

Course Purpose and Objectives

Play and Society builds on 13 themes (play as culture, play as values, play as spectacle, play as gender, play as identity, play as a simulation of history, play as a historical artifact, play as media, play as art, play as expression, play as serious impact, play as a social construct, and play as learning) discussed around three main goals:

Defining playfulness, lusory attitude, playing, gaming, and game design as a form of cultural activity and production

Mapping the relationship of play and games to communities, cultures, and societies

Understanding playful design affordances and media conventions, their histories and origins, as well as a future imagining of play and games in art, technology, activism, and social impact

This course approaches games as phenomena informed by the social, cultural, and political milieu of their time. Accordingly, apart from analyzing the medium itself, equal weight of discussion is reserved to developers and designers who produce them, the players who play them, and the fanbases that create products around them. As outcomes of this course, the students are expected to:

Identify, describe, and analyze a broad array of games and playful experiences, as well as artifacts and cultures around them across times and media

Understand the contemporary issues around games and gaming, and identify the origins of such issues through conventions and traditions

Apply social, cultural, political, and philosophical theories and perspectives to many forms of playful productions

Course Context

Play and Society is a 3-credits elective course offered as a part of the Creative Technologies’ Interdisciplinary Technologies and Game Design majors (B.A. or B.S. degrees), Game Design minor, as well as the Creative Technologies Masters (M.S. degree) program. Creative Technologies programs attract students who are interested in careers in digital and interactive media production including: game design and development; web development; video production; sound design for live performance, broadcast, and multimedia; digital music composition and production; VR and XR; and emerging, computational, and interdisciplinary arts. Within the Game Design major and minor, this class is typically taken by sophomores or juniors. The undergrad version hosts a maximum of 20 students and the graduate version hosts a maximum of 10 students. The class content stays essentially the same between undergrad and graduate versions, however, the undergrad version might seek less rigor in the research assignment component. The graduate version also accepts larger scale research articles as final projects. Since graduate students typically bring more technical skills with them to the class, video essay assignments can end up being post-produced better. In contrast, for undergrad students, screencasts of screen presentations (e.g., PowerPoint) become acceptable. Although this is designed as a face-to-face course, it was taught online during the COVID-pandemic without any major overhauls. The online version included some additional virtual class activities to include all students in the discussions which is less of a problem in a physical class. Some of these activities included breakout sessions during which smaller student groups discuss a specific material (e.g., reading, game, etc.) and then present it to the class when the breakout sessions are joined. The online version also relies more heavily on Discord for completing discussions that are kicked off during virtual sessions.

Course Pedagogy

Play and Society is designed around student- and instructor-led in- and out-of-class discussions. The content is divided into 13 comprehensible themes with each theme focusing on 2-3 discussion questions and/or talking points (Conner-Greene, 2005). Providing these questions upfront helps the students to experience the materials (readings, videos, and games) with the discussions in mind and acts as anticipation guides (Readance et al., 1989). Each week is divided into two sittings: an experiential kickoff and a formative feedback session (Shute, 2007). In the experiential kickoff session, the lecture begins with the facilitator student(s) introducing the theme by summarizing the materials and defining the highlights within them. The students discuss the materials among themselves, hold a mind dump session (Nilson, 2010), may make time to collaboratively read/watch some of the materials in-class, and use the rest of the time to cooperatively play a selected game from the suggestions. Between the two sessions, the students continue their discussions online and play rest of the selected games. The out-of-class (online) discussions are also facilitated by selected students for each theme. Finally, in the formative feedback session, the instructor leads the in-class discussions around the weekly questions/talking points while giving feedback on the answers and reflections provided by the students throughout the week.

Course Texts, Games, Software, and Hardware

The course is based on a selection of individual readings and videos, which are shared with students weekly. The course schedule describes when each material must be read or watched.

Required:

Technology: The class uses Discord for day-to-day questions and communication. Discord is available as a mobile, computer, or browser app.

Technology: Some class activities (such as game play) are hands-on and may occasionally need a laptop. It is always recommended for students to bring their laptop to the class. When/if they are working on a digital project, it is the team’s responsibility to provide its own computer hardware to develop and present their project.

Suggested:

Students should check the school’s library to learn more about how to access articles, databases, books, eBooks, and for a list of recommended publications. They can reach out to the librarian to ask for help on their research activities.

Reading: "Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-element in Culture" by J. Huizinga

Reading: "Birth of the Chess Queen" by Marilyn Yalom

Reading: "The Video Game Theory Reader" by Mia Consalvo

Reading: "The Video Game Theory Reader 2" by Bernard Perron and Mark J.P. Wolf

Game play:

The course requires physical and digital games to be played in- and out-of-class. The physical games (board, card, dice, etc.) should be available in-class or to borrow. The digital games are chosen from free games or demos when possible. However, in case of them not being free, in the interest of keeping the required monetary resources acceptable, students can choose to just watch multiple playthroughs of the digital games instead of a purchase or arrange to drop by the office hours to play them.

Course Assignments

There are 4 assignments for this course, as well as an expectancy to join the forum/Discord discussions for each theme.

Theme Facilitation (Individual Assignment): Each student (or a small team of students depending on the class population) will select one of the weekly themes to facilitate. Facilitations will be done through the class forums and during the lectures. As the facilitator of the week, the student(s) will start a post on the forums for the weekly theme. The post will include: some important bullet points from the readings of the week, an additional reading and/or video essay about the theme, a selected short list of games about the theme, and some additional cues/questions for discussion. It will also be the job of the facilitators to follow the discussions on the forums and post responses. The facilitators will also be given time during the lecture to provide a verbal introduction to weekly materials.

Research Project (Individual Assignment): This class will have research assignments that run throughout the semester with multiple deliverables. The details of the assignment are determined depending on the current grants and projects of the instructor. Participation in the research projects might entail data gathering, data analysis, writing results, background research, etc. depending on the student’s interests and skills.

Video Essay Project (Group Assignment): In this assignment, the students are expected to work alone or in groups to create a video essay to be uploaded to ISU Creative Technologies’ YouTube channel. The final videos should be between 5-15 minutes. Before starting any post-production, the teams need to submit their script to be approved by the instructor. The students need to be mindful of intellectual properties while choosing visuals, recording game play footage, selecting sounds & music, etc. Although YouTube can auto-caption the videos, supplying proper subtitles is encouraged. The references can be included at the end of the video or inside the video text description.

Design & Production Project (Group Assignment): As the final assignment of the class, the students are going to bring their work and learnings together to create ideas and projects about how playfulness, games, and lusory attitude can be mobilized for the purposes of cultural communication, art, activism, and/or societal impact. Then, they will collaborate on planning, executing, and working toward creating a (group of) work that is large and interdisciplinary enough to be presented/performed/published/exhibited in some sort of public venue. Creative Technologies’ annual Games Showcase is a natural fit for some of these projects. The graduate version of the class also accepts larger scale research articles as final projects.

Course Assessment

Theme Facilitation (10%): This is an individual assignment and the themes are distributed during the first week.

Participation (15%): This is an individual assessment and includes your participation in weekly forums and Discord discussions.

Research Project (25%): This is an individual assignment and its distributed as small deliverables throughout the semester.

Video Essay Project (25%): This is a group assignment and will be completed between weeks 3 and 8.

Design & Production Project (25%): This is a group assignment and will be completed between weeks 10 and 16.

Total (100%)

Expanded Course Outline

Each week is taught in two sessions of 75 minutes, typically on separate days. However, the syllabus can also work with longer class times by allocating the time into two slots. Except the first and final two weeks, each week/theme is assigned to a single student or a group of students for facilitation. The facilitator(s) kick off the week by introducing the discussion questions and materials such as readings, videos, and games for the week. In the first part of the class, students discuss the research questions and materials in one large group (see the Course Pedagogy section). In the second part of the class, the instructor brings the discussed points together and adds a lecture/presentation covering the points that were already highlighted by students or that were not brought up at all. The students use the Discord app to continue communication between the two sessions and may share additional materials with each other such as games, web articles, videos, etc. Depending on the depth of discussions each week, the instructor can choose to facilitate gameplay either in the first or the second part of the class. For busy weeks, the gameplay might be assigned for out-of-class time. If a given game is not free, instead of a purchase, the student can watch a playthrough from YouTube, Twitch, etc. or visit the office hours to borrow a copy.

Week 1: Course Introduction

Class Topics/Activities

Introduction to the syllabus

Class introductions

Discussion questions:

What is play? What does play predates culture mean?

Why do we play?

What is a game? What is the difference between playing and playing a game?

Assignments

Interact: Students meet each other in class, but use Discord outside of class to further introduce themselves

Read: The first 7 paragraphs of (pp. 1-4) Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-element in Culture by J. Huizinga

Interact: Post a reflection on the forum/Discord about the week’s discussion questions, materials, and games

Week 2: Play as Culture

Class Topics/Activities

Discussion questions:

Can we preserve and/or remember a culture through gaming?

Which cultures have the power to produce games?

Why does it matter that different cultures create games based on their cultural identities, stories, aesthetics, etc.?

Game play:

Never Alone (Upper One Games), http://neveralonegame.com/

The Great Palermo (We Are Müesli), https://www.wearemuesli.it/palermo

The Cat and The Coup (Kurosh ValaNejad), https://www.thecatandthecoup.com/

Assignments

Read: "The Game Industry of Iran" by Yara Elmjouie, Polygon.com

Read:"African video game makers are breaking into the global industry with their own stories" by Abdi Latif Dahir, QZ.com

Interact: Post a reflection on the forum/Discord about the week’s discussion questions, materials, and games

Week 3: Play as Values

Class Topics/Activities

Discussion questions:

How can games have values?

Are (video) games better at changing people’s values than other media (such as books, movies, music, etc.)?

When designers are making games, how conscious are they about their design choices constructing values?

Game play:

Papers, Please (Lucas Pope), https://dukope.com/

Break the Glass Ceiling (Flynn Geraghty), https://isuctkgame.itch.io/break-the-glass-ceiling

Assignments

Read: "The Video Games That Made People Question Their Beliefs" by Gita Jackson, Kotaku.com

Read: "How RimWorld’s Code Defines Strict Gender Roles" by Claudia Lo, Rockpapershotgun.com

Watch: "The Last Guardian and the Language of Games" by Game Maker’s Toolkit, YouTube

Interact: Post a reflection on the forum/Discord about the week’s discussion questions, materials, and games

Week 4: Play as Spectacle

Class Topics/Activities

Discussion questions:

Do games need to be visual, aural, or action-based spectacles? Spectacles are made to be watched, admired, felt wonder toward, and got excited about. Is that still pervasive in the way we understand games?

Why do we like watching games rather than playing them? This is more understandable for, say, sports and historic gladiator games. But, how about e-sports, Twitch, YouTube, etc.?

Is there a bias against games that are not perceived as spectacles; where does that come from? Does that affect the way the industry is making games?

Game play:

Gone Home (The Fullbright Company), https://gonehome.game/

The Uncle Who Works for Nintendo (Michael Lutz), https://ztul.itch.io/the-uncle-who-works-for-nintendo

Fall Guys (Mediatonic), https://www.mediatonicgames.com/game/fall-guys

Assignments

Read: "Ludic Voyeurism and Passive Spectatorship in Gone Home and Other ‘Walking Simulators’" by Sercan Şengün, VGA Gallery, videogameartgallery.com

Read: "Let’s NOT Play: why do we watch others play games?" by Andy Hartup, Gamesradar.com

Read:"The pandemic will change how we watch sports" by Will Douglas Heaven, MIT Technology Review

Interact: Post a reflection on the forum/Discord about the week’s discussion questions, materials, and games

Week 5: Play as Gender

Class Topics/Activities

Discussion questions:

Is play gendered? Do boys really prefer to play with soldiers and trucks while girls like to play with dolls and model houses? Or is that a learned taste that the society and toy/play industry constructed? Following this logic do female gamers inherently like games with less action and violence (as opposed to male gamers)?

Are the representations of female avatars, heroes, characters, etc. poorer than their male counterparts in games?

Is the game industry dominantly male? Do the developers’ views on gender roles affect their games?

Game play: (for this week’s games: play to the extent that you feel comfortable with)

One Night, Hot Springs (NPCKC), https://npckc.itch.io/one-night-hot-springs

Radiator 2 (Robert Yang), https://radiatoryang.itch.io/radiator2

Luxuria Superbia (Tale of Tales), http://luxuria-superbia.com/

Assignments

Watch: "Tropes vs Women in Video Games" Season One by Feminist Frequency, YouTube

Read: "Inside the Culture of Sexism at Riot Games" by Cecilia D’Anastasio, Kotaku.com

Read: "Why do they fight?" by Sercan Şengün et al., sercansengun.com/whydotheyfight

Interact: Post a reflection on the forum/Discord about the week’s discussion questions, materials, and games

Week 6: Play as Identity

Class Topics/Activities

Discussion questions:

Is the game industry dominantly white and Asian? (This comes from a concept called the hegemony of play by Fron et al. 2007, which will be a reading this week.)

Are certain ethnicities/groups misrepresented in games (much like in other media…)?

Do you identify as a gamer? Does that matter?

Game play: Who’s She (Zuzia Kozerska-Girard, Playeress, watch on Kickstarter and YouTube), https://playeress.com/

Assignments

Read: Fron, Janine, Tracy Fullerton, Jacquelyn Ford Morie, and Celia Pearce. The Hegemony of Play. In Situated Play, Proceedings of DiGRA 2007 Conference. 2007.

Read: "Confronting racial bias in video games" by Eric Peckham, Techcrunch.com

Read: "Hispanic (Mis)Representation (or lack thereof) in Gaming History" by Jaime Pineda, Medium.com

Read: "Shooting the Arabs: How video games perpetuate Muslim stereotypes" by Nicole Lee, Engadget.com

Read: "Fear, Anxiety and Hope: What It Means to Be a Minority in Gaming" by NYTimes.com

Read: "Do you identify as a gamer?" by Adrianne Shaw, New Media & Society, 14(1), 28-44.

Interact: Post a reflection on the forum/Discord about the week’s discussion questions, materials, and games

Week 7: Play as a Simulation of History

Class Topics/Activities

Discussion questions:

Is history biased? Is it a science or is it a narrative written by the victors? (Although this is not a history class, this discussion creates a transition into the next questions.)

Are games a good medium for simulating, teaching, or learning about history?

Can games help us preserve historical events, artifacts, viewpoints, etc.?

Do the game designers perform the necessary historical research before they make their games?

Game play:

Notre-Dame de Paris: Journey Back in Time (Ubisoft)

Any Assassin’s Creed game

Assignments

Read: "Portraying Historical Landmarks and Events in the Digital Game Series Assassin’s Creed" by Jana Radošinská, Actaludologica.com

Watch: "Paradox Interactive: History and Game Design" 2016 GDC talk from Paradox’s Chris King, YouTube

Interact: Post a reflection on the forum/Discord about the week’s discussion questions, materials, and games

Week 8: Play as a Historical Artifact

Class Topics/Activities

Discussion questions:

Is the history of gaming (especially video gaming) documented well?

How can we document the history/narrative of gaming, gaming communities, development, etc.? Why does this matter?

Sometimes we may think that games are created in a historical vacuum. How are games affected by the social, political, and historical events around them? Discuss in relation with this week’s reading by Marilyn Yalom.

Game play: Evoland 1 and Evoland 2 (Shiro Games), https://evoland.shirogames.com/

Assignments

Read: The first 3 chapters of (pp. 3-36) Birth of the Chess Queen by Marilyn Yalom.

Watch: Any video(s) from Gaming Historian channel on YouTube

Interact: Post a reflection on the forum/Discord about the week’s discussion questions, materials, and games

Week 9: Play as Media

Class Topics/Activities

Discussion questions:

Read this quote from Michael Samyn: Video games that are not media are better games. Video games that are not games are better media. What does this mean?

Are games a form of media? How do video games decode/encode their messages?

Compared to other forms of media, how effective do you think video games are in communicating the intended message? Do you think video game players are always aware of the messages they receive through their games?

Game play: Lone Survivor (Jasper Byrne), http://www.lonesurvivor.co.uk/

Assignments

Read: The first chapter of (pp. 1-18) Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan

Watch: "How the Medium Shapes the Message" by MIT Media Lab, YouTube

Watch: "The Medium is the Message" by BBC Radio 4, YouTube

Read: "Video Games as Media" by Michael Samyn, Gamasutra.com

Week 10: Play as Art

Class Topics/Activities

Discussion questions: Below is a list of video games that are considered artistic, artworks that uses (video) games, or artists that work with (video) games. Research and experience a few while answering these questions:

How did they inspire you? What does it mean that they were created with/in games?

List:

Samorost series, Amanita Design

Super Mario Sleeping, Miltos Manetas

Expositur, Eckermann & Fuchs

Max Payne Cheats, JODI

Suicide Solution, Brody Condon

Other Places, Andy Kelley

Backlash 1998, Richard Pierre-Davis

Façade, Mateas and Stern

JFK Reloaded, Traffic Software

Works of Feng Mengbo

Works of Mark Essen

Student’s own selection

Assignments

Read: "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" by Walter Benjamin

Read: "10 Artists Who Use Video Games as Their Medium" by Flavorwire.com

Interact: Post a reflection on the forum/Discord about the week’s discussion questions, materials, and games

Week 11: Play as Expression

Class Topics/Activities

Discussion questions:

Who owns the materials that come out of a fandom? Are players justified in freely using materials from games as their creative output? Are companies justified in (trying to) regulating them?

Do fandoms create pressure on game developers and their artistic freedom? Do they act as gatekeepers?

What do you think of the comparison between games that are made as artistic expression (or with an authorial vision) vs. games that are made to be modded, modified, skinned, etc. (so that they put the labor on players’ shoulders)?

Game play: Check some game mods! Here is a good place to start: 10 Games with The Best Mods Available, Ranked by Mark Carpenter, GameRant.com

Assignments

Read: "Art within the machine: how machinima turns the camera on videogames" by Matt Turner, BFI.org.uk

Read: "Still Unsatisfied with Mass Effect 3? Read One Fan’s 539 Page Rewrite" by Paul Tassi, Forbes.com

Read: Postigo, Hector. Of mods and modders: Chasing down the value of fan-based digital game modifications. Games and Culture 2, no. 4 (2007): 300-313.

Watch: "Are Fandoms Bad? | A Video Essay" by Saberspark, YouTube

Interact: Post a reflection on the forum/Discord about the week’s discussion questions, materials, and games

Week 12: Play as Serious Impact

Class Topics/Activities

Discussion questions:

Can games create serious social and political impacts?

Who has the power to create such games?

Should gaming elements be involved in our daily lives (gamification)?

Game play:

Bury Me, My Love (ARTE France), https://burymemylove.arte.tv/

3rd World Farmer (Frederik Hermund), https://3rdworldfarmer.org/

Darfur is Dying (interFUEL), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_is_Dying

PeaceMaker (ImpactGames), http://www.peacemakergame.com/

Assignments

Read: Sercan Şengün (2016), Video Oyunlarının Toplumsal ve Politik Değişim Potansiyellerini Okumak Amacı ile Farklı Bir Sınıflandırma Önerisi (Turkish, title trans.: A Classification Proposal to Understanding the Potential of Videogames in Social and Political Change). Yeni Medya Çalışmaları II. Ulusal Kongre Kitabı, pp. 459-471. (Translated text will be provided.)

Read: "Gamification is Bullshit" by Ian Bogost, TheAtlantic.com

Interact: Post a reflection on the forum/Discord about the week’s discussion questions, materials, and games

Week 13: Play as Social Construct

Class Topics/Activities

Discussion questions:

How do social interactions happen between players in the game worlds? How do game developers affect these interactions through game design?

How do virtual characters simulate social interactions? How to create better social virtual characters?

Game play: Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo), https://www.animal-crossing.com/new-horizons/

Assignments

Read: El-Nasr, Magy Seif, Bardia Aghabeigi, David Milam, Mona Erfani, Beth Lameman, Hamid Maygoli, and Sang Mah. Understanding and evaluating cooperative games. In CHI, vol. 10, pp. 252-262. 2010.

Watch: "More Science Behind Shaping Player Behavior in Online Game" 2015 GDC talk from Riot Games’ Jeffrey Lin, YouTube

Watch: "Better Game Characters by Design" 2007 lecture by Katherine Isbister, Stanford, YouTube (only between timecodes 7:40 – 45:40)

Interact: Post a reflection on the forum/Discord about the week’s discussion questions, materials, and games

Week 14: Play as Learning

Class Topics/Activities

Discussion questions:

Are games better at teaching than traditional methods? Is this the case for all topics, games, genres, and audience combinations?

What are the components of an effective educational game?

Game play:

The Oregon Trail versions (various), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oregon_Trail_(series)

Type:Rider (ARTE France), https://www.arte.tv/sites/webproductions/en/typerider/

Assignments

Read: Garris, Rosemary, Robert Ahlers, and James E. Driskell. Games, motivation, and learning: A research and practice model. Simulation & gaming 33, no. 4 (2002): 441-467.

Read: Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Simon. Overview of research on the educational use of video games. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy 1, no. 03 (2006): 184-214.

Watch: "Games and Education Scholar James Paul Gee on Video Games, Learning, and Literacy" by Connected Learning Alliance, YouTube

Interact: Post a reflection on the forum/Discord about the week’s discussion questions, materials, and games

Week 15-16: Final Project

Students work on their final projects in- and out-of-class and present them in the final meeting of the class to their peers and the instructor.

Course Best Practices

Play and Society works best when it is divided into two sessions with a couple of days apart. The time in between gives the students a chance to discuss materials online and play the recommended games. If the class is going to be taught as a longer block session, the instructor can use the time between classes more effectively by moving gameplay out-of-the-class. In either case, out-of-class communication channels would be required. If the class is being taught face-to-face, an instant messaging system (e.g., Discord, Slack, etc.) should be generally enough. If the class is being taught online, a learning management system (LMS) forum should also be employed. Forums encourage the students to outline their ideas in a more formal and structured way. Instead of each student starting a separate forum thread, creating a forum thread per each question/talking point of the week may help focus the discussions. The students can additionally use instant messaging systems to discuss game play or materials in an informal way.

Using peer-review for teamwork can be its own learning experience. The students should be aware that professional life includes working with a diverse range of people who may or may not perform well in a group. Additionally, peer-review assessments are already in place in many companies and academia.

Past outcomes from this class have been (1) published as video essays on YouTube and other video streaming services; (2) disseminated as academic publications or as articles on reputable gaming websites; and (3) released on gaming platforms such as Itch.io or The Game Crafter (www.thegamecrafter.com).

Future Course Plans

Although the themes of the course are selected to stand the test of time, their fine-grained content (e.g., readings, videos, games, etc.) will require revisions through up-to-date materials and discussions. The student facilitations wherein the students propose additional readings, videos, and games can be included in the future iterations of the class to support the timeliness of the materials. The course is also suitable for inviting guest lecturers either from the industry or academia to expand more on the weekly themes. The students can benefit from interacting with and hearing from the designers of the assigned games or authors of the assigned pieces. Play and Society has been a very productive class in terms of encouraging student work such as video essays, analog and digital games, essays, data, and other research that can be disseminated through multiple channels. Interested instructors can highlight the production aspects and assignments of the class as they see fit.

References

BBC Radio 4. (2015, January 27). The medium is the message [Video]. YouTube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko6J9v1C9zE

Benjamin, W. (2008). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. Penguin UK.

Bogost, I. (2011, August 9). Gamification is bullshit. The Atlantic. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/gamification-is-bullshit/243338/

Carpenter, M. (2020, February 14). 10 games with the best mods available, ranked. GameRant.com. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://gamerant.com/games-with-the-best-mods-ranked/

Connected Learning Alliance. (2011, August 4). Games and education scholar James Paul Gee on video games, learning, and literacy [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNfPdaKYOPI

Connor-Greene, P. A. (2005). Fostering meaningful classroom discussion: Student-generated questions, quotations, and talking points. Teaching of Psychology, 32(3), 173-175.

Consalvo, M. (2003). The video game theory reader. Psychology Press.

D’Anastasio, C. (2018, August 7). Inside the culture of sexism at Riot Games. Kotaku. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://kotaku.com/inside-the-culture-of-sexism-at-riot-games-1828165483

Dahir, A. L. (2017, March 5). African video game makers are breaking into the global industry with their own stories. QZ.com. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://qz.com/africa/974439/african-video-game-makers-are-breaking-into-the-global-industry-with-their-own-stories/

Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S. (2006). Overview of research on the educational use of video games. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 1(3), 184-214.

Elmjouie, Y. (2016, January 14). The game industry of Iran. Polygon. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://www.polygon.com/features/2016/1/14/10757460/the-game-industry-of-iran

Feminist Frequency (2013, March 7). Tropes vs women in video games [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch/X6p5AZp7r_Q

Flavorwire. (2011, February 17). 10 artists who use video games as their medium. Flavorwire.com. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://www.flavorwire.com/152604/10-artists-who-use-video-games-as-their-medium

Fron, J., Fullerton, T., Morie, J. F., & Pearce, C. (2007, September). The Hegemony of Play. In Situated Play, Proceedings of DiGRA 2007 Conference.

Game Maker’s Toolkit. (2017, January 9). The Last Guardian and the language of games [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qot5_rMB8Jc

Garris, R., Robert A., and James E. D. (2002). Games, motivation, and learning: A research and practice model. Simulation & Gaming, 33(4), 441-467.

GDC. (2016, July 25). Paradox Interactive: History and game design [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYzxcf_ZL_g

GDC Vault. (n.d.). More science behind shaping player behavior in online games [Video]. GDC Vault. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1022160/More-Science-Behind-Shaping-Player

Hartup, A. (2014, August 28). Let’s NOT Play: why do we watch others play games? Games Radar. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://www.gamesradar.com/whats-so-great-about-watching-someone-else-play-video-games/

Heaven, W. D. (2020, June 22). The pandemic will change how we watch sports. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/22/1004194/lockdown-pandemic-sports-esports-virtual-fans-watch-video-games/

Huizinga, J. (1970). Homo Ludens: A study of the play element in culture. London: Maurice Temple Smith Ltd.

Jackson, G. (2019, July 2). The video games that made people question their beliefs. Kotaku. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://kotaku.com/the-video-games-that-made-people-question-their-beliefs-1836045401

Lee, N. (2016, March 24). Shooting the Arabs: How video games perpetuate Muslim stereotypes. Engadget.com. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://www.engadget.com/2016-03-24-shooting-the-arabs-how-video-games-perpetuate-muslim-stereotype.html

Lo, C. (2016, November 2). How RimWorld’s code defines strict gender roles. Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/11/02/rimworld-code-analysis/

McLuhan, M., & Fiore, Q. (1967). The medium is the message. New York, 123, 126-128.

MIT Media Lab. (2019, February 20). How the medium shapes the message [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsZQMaN5pYc

Nilson, L. B. (2010). Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Peckham, E. (2020, June 21). Confronting racial bias in video games. TechCrunch. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/21/confronting-racial-bias-in-video-games/

Perron, B., & Wolf, M. J. (Eds.). (2008). The video game theory reader 2. Routledge.

Pineda, J. (2019, February 1). Hispanic (mis)representation (or lack thereof) in gaming history. Medium.com. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://medium.com/@jaapined/hispanic-mis-representation-or-lack-thereof-in-gaming-history-307f154deba9

Postigo, H. (2007) Of mods and modders: Chasing down the value of fan-based digital game modifications. Games and Culture, 2(4), 300-313.

Radošinská, J. (2018). Portraying historical landmarks and events in the digital game series Assassin’s Creed. Acta Ludologica, 1(2), 4-16.

Readance, J., Bean, T., & Baldwin, S. (1989). Content area reading: An integrated approach. Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt.

Saberspark. (2015, November 19). Are Fandoms Bad? | A Video Essay [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9_SMqVkT10

Samyn, M. (2011, February 16). Video games as media. Gamasutra.com. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134657/video_games_as_media.php

Seif El-Nasr, M., Aghabeigi, B., Milam, D., Erfani, M., Lameman, B., Maygoli, H., & Mah, S. (2010, April). Understanding and evaluating cooperative games. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 253-262).

Şengün, S. (2016). A classification proposal to understanding the potential of videogames in social and political change. Proceedings of National New Media Congress II (pp. 459-471).

Şengün, S. (2018, July 6). Ludic voyeurism and passive spectatorship in Gone Home and other ‘walking simulators.’ Video Game Art Reader, 1(1), 30-42.

Şengün, S. (2018). Why do they fight? Sercansengun.com. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from http://sercansengun.com/whydotheyfight/

Shaw, A. (2012). Do you identify as a gamer? Gender, race, sexuality, and gamer identity. New Media & Sfociety, 14(1), 28-44.

Shute, V. J. (2007). Focus on formative feedback. ETS Research Report Series, 2007(1), i-47.

Stanford. (2008, May 9). Better game characters by design [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyEimb-oGqg

Tassi, P. (2014, January 21). Still unsatisfied with Mass Effect 3? Read one fan’s 539 page rewrite. Forbes. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/01/21/still-unsatisfied-with-mass-effect-3-read-one-fans-539-page-rewrite/

Turner, M. (2019, April 2). Art within the machine: how machinima turns the camera on videogames. BFI.org. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/features/machinima-videogames-cinema-art

Yalom, M. (2004). Birth of the chess queen: A history. Harper Collins.

Zaveri, M., Menghistab, M. T., Beltran, G., & Celil, A. (2019, October 16). Fear, anxiety and hope: What it means to be a minority in gaming. NY Times. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/16/technology/game-developers.html

Sercan Şengün, Ph.D. ([email protected]) is a researcher, teacher, and game designer, exploring phenomena at the intersections of video game studies, gamer communities, cultural informatics, virtual identities, and interactive narratives. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Creative Technologies (Game Design) at Illinois State University. In the past, he conducted research as a part of MIT CSAIL (Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory), MIT ICE Lab (Imagination, Computation, and Expression Laboratory), and Hamad Bin Khalifa University's QCRI (Qatar Computing Research Institute), and taught graduate and undergraduate game design courses at Northeastern University, Bahcesehir University, and Istanbul Bilgi University. ↵

2

Ethics and Gaming (MDIA 316)

Karen Schrier

Karen (Kat) Schrier[1]

Marist College

Course Title:  MDIA 316: Ethics and Gaming

Course College/School: Marist College School of Communication & the Arts

Course Department/Program:Film, Television, Games & Interactive Media

Course Level:Undergraduate

Course Credits: 3

Course Length:15 weeks

Course Medium:Face-to-face or online (remote) synchronous

Course Keywords: Undergraduate, Video Games, Ethics, Values, Games, Hedonism, Virtue Ethics, Utilitarianism, Kantian Ethics, Justice, Feminist Ethics, Ethics of Care

Catalog Description

This course introduces students to the intersection of ethics and gaming, an emerging field of study that is both innovative and as old as humankind. Human beings have always played games to experiment with different identities, explore choices and consequences and to try on new moral perspectives. This class will provide students with a foundation in relevant ethics theory, as well as game design and game studies. Students will be exposed to different case studies of both digital and non-digital games, and through this, will understand how games are ethical systems, how games help us understand our own ethics and cultural norms, and how games may help us reflect on and practice ethical thinking skills. Students will learn how to apply major ethical frameworks to current issues in ethics and games. They will also better understand controversies and concerns related to gaming and the development of games, and how this may reflect cultural norms, as well as relate to issues of gender, race, sex, and violence.

Image created by Celine Diaz. Used with permission of the creator.

Course Purpose and Objectives

Games are communities and games are part of our public, our society, and our culture – and as such, the play and creation of them have ethical implications. I have three main goals with this course. First, the goal is to help foster the practice of ethical thinking by using the popular, relevant medium of games. Two, many of the students who take this course want to be game developers or designers and I want to help them cultivate an interest in and habit of also asking ethical questions when making and distributing games, in addition to asking design, technical, artistic, and business questions. Three, I also hope that students develop a greater understanding for the cultural and social implications of games, and how ethical questions around games pervade and influence our everyday lives. In other words: as grapple with the ethical ramifications of our creation and play of games, we may start to also disentangle broader questions about humanity and how we should all live together.

These are the eight course objectives:

Demonstrate an understanding of, and compare, at least four ethical theories and the ability to use it to explain and justify moral judgments in related to games.

Apply at least two ethical frameworks to games and other playable media.

Engage in research on at least one primary ethical issue in games.

Demonstrate well-grounded ethical argumentation related to games in written and oral communication formats.

Gain knowledge and facility with a breadth of issues related to ethics and games, such as ones related to design, marketing, and social aspects of gaming.

Show the ability to critically examine the often unspoken and unarticulated assumptions and values that underlie our interactions with and design of games.

Design and prototype a non-digital game related to an ethical issue.

Work collaboratively in teams.

Course Context

The course is an upper-level (junior/senior) undergraduate course in the Games and Emerging Media degree program and the Media Studies and Production degree/Interactive Media concentration. The course counts as an Applied Ethics course, which counts for the Ethics and Justice core requirement, one of the core requirements at Marist College, like Social Science, Literature, and History. The course needed to be approved by the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies and the Core Committee. is currently one of only two courses that count as an Applied Ethics course, and one of only two non-philosophy department courses that count for this particular core requirement. According to the requirements for this type of course at Marist College, it must include a minimum of three different ethical theories (utilitarian, Kantian and virtue ethics) and include explicit critical evaluation of ethical issues in a particular discipline or field, recognizing the complexity of the decision-making process and providing guidance for making moral decisions. Mainly games majors and minors take the course, but some additional students take the course to fulfill their ethics and justice requirement.

The class is typically taught face-to-face in a laboratory classroom with 24 computers and stations, that are formed into six different pods. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the class was also taught in a remote synchronous format through Discord. The basic outline and content of the course was the same, with students still working in groups to design games (though meeting in Discord voice channels rather than in person). However, one change between the two formats is that I had them create games to played over Discord, rather than to be played in person. The games were also playtested through Discord as well. Some of the in-person games (board games, card games, sport games) that we typically play in person needed to be substituted with digital versions or other games. Otherwise, what I would typically do in person was shared with students through the remote synchronous format.

Course Pedagogy

I am guided by five principles as I teach:

Learning Should Combine Theory with Practice

All of my courses integrate theory with practice and show students how theory and research can inform design, how practice can drive theory, and how theory can be applied in the real world. I believe it is essential to play with knowledge and experiment with ideas through both abstract investigation and hands-on interactions. Through full-class discussions and interactive lessons, we collaboratively build a theoretical foundation on the topic. Then, students work in small groups to immediately apply their new knowledge and solve a design problem related to the topic of the day. I encourage them to search for creative solutions, to cultivate their individuality, and to iterate their designs using alternate perspectives. My students engage in design as a way of playfully interrogating new concepts.

Learning Should Involve Critical Thought

I strongly value the cultivation of critical thinking skills, such as interpretation, deliberation, evaluation, and the consideration of multiple perspectives. When teaching in the classroom, I do not simply express a litany of facts, but I provide multiple ways of viewing concepts, and invite students to express their unique opinions and perspectives. I question students’ assumptions and critique their work constructively, so that they can develop further beyond even their own expectations. By doing so, I hope to encourage students to reflect on and potentially reevaluate their own beliefs.

Learning is Social

I believe we are continually learning from and teaching each other, through our behavior, by sharing our perspectives, and by expressing our values and beliefs. My class functions as a learning community, where students work together to solve problems, test hypotheses, and constructively critique each other’s ideas and solutions. I strongly encourage empathy, compassion, and perspective-taking. My students work in groups to rapidly prototype, create stories, and write design documents, as well as to critique each other’s approaches. This happens formally through the classroom, but we also spend time playing games together over Discord, connecting with industry speakers and guest lecturers, or working on projects and events together, like game jams. I want my students to interact, play, learn and grow.

Learning is Empowering

I am passionate about helping each student develop their unique talents and abilities. While I believe learning with others is beneficial, I also encourage my students to develop and pursue their individual creativity and interests and I give them an appropriate amount of freedom to explore. I want students to feel empowered and to actively experiment with what interests them. Enabling students to write and present on their favorite games also helps them to overcome personal barriers and gain comfort in public speaking and writing.

Learning is Iterative

Design, redesign, and revision are built into the course. As part of this, we approach all design, writing, and presentation work as iterative and engage in the process of critique and revision continually. Students work on projects iteratively and reshape their work continually based on feedback from peers, clients, professors, and users. Just as I encourage students to listen and invite feedback, I also ask students for feedback so that I can grow as a teacher, and to help to redesign our curriculum, classroom activities, topics, and exercises. I like to experiment with new learning methods and tools—even if they may fail—and I am transparent with my students about my purpose and goals. This also helps students reflect not only on what they are learning, but how they learn, and how they can better learn in the future.

Class Structure

I typically teach this class in the evening in a 2.5-hour block, or in two hour-fifteen class periods.

First 30-45 minutes: Playing and Connecting

The first part of my class we typically spend playing and connecting. We also review what we did the previous week and what we will do in the session. We first discuss any concerns, fears, or hopes. Students share any games they have been playing, ask questions, and any issues they are having with exercises or just life in general. We also share our thoughts on the issue of the week (a weekly ethics and games issue in the news that we discuss on forums prior to the class). And we play a short game or do a small activity. For instance, students take turns bringing in a short game to play that relates