James Paul Gee

Good Video Games

and Good Learning

I
played my first video game four years ago
when my six-year-old son, Sam, was playing
Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When Its Dark
Outside. In Pajama Sam, child superhero Sam goes off
to the Land of Darkness to find and capture Darkness
in a lunch pail and thereby alleviate fear of the dark.
Darkness turns out to be a big, lonely softie who just
needs a playmate.
I wanted to play the game so that I could support my
sons problem-solving. Though Pajama Sam is not an
educational game, it is replete with the types of prob-
lems that psychologists study when they study thinking
and learning. When I saw how well the game held Sams
attention, I wondered what sort of beast a more mature
video game might be. I went to a store and arbitrarily
picked a game, The New Adventures of the Time Machine.
Then again, perhaps it was not so arbitrary, as I was
undoubtedly reassured by the association with
H. G. Wells and literature.

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GOOD VIDEO GAMES AND GOOD LEARNING

As I confronted the game, I was amazed. It was Left out of the context of biology as activity, biologi-
hard, long, and complex. I failed many times and had cal facts are trivia.
to engage in a virtual research project via the Internet
So, ironically, just as in part what you learn when
to learn some of the things that I needed to know. All
you successfully play a good video game is how to
of my Baby-Boomer ways of learning and thinking
play the game, so too, what you learn when you learn
did not work, and I felt myself using learning muscles
biology should be how to play that game. However,
that had not had this much of a workout since my
for both video games and biology, it is not a case of
graduate school days in theoretical linguistics.
anything goes this is not a permissive progres-
As I struggled, I thought: Lots of young people sivism writ large. You must inhabit the identity that
pay lots of money to engage in an activity that is the game offers (be it Battle Mage or field biologist),
hard, long, and complex. As an educator, I real- and you have to discover what the rules are and
ized that this was just the problem our schools face how they can best be leveraged to accomplish goals.
how do you get someone to learn something long, Perhaps the word game rankles some use sim-
hard, and complex, and yet still enjoy it? I became ulation instead. However, keep in mind that a game
intrigued by the implications that good video games such as Full Spectrum Warrior is a game when I buy
might have for learning in and out of schools. And, it off the rack, but it is a serious learning tool when a
I also played many more great games such as Half- soldier plays the professional-training version.
Life, Deus Ex, Halo, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind,
Rise of Nations, and Legend of Zelda: The Wind
Waker.
LEARNING PRINCIPLES
Good video games incorporate good learning
principles, principles supported by current research in
cognitive science (Gee 2003, 2004). Why? If no one
S o, lets take a brief look at some of the learning
principles that good games incorporate (Gee 2003,
2004, 2005).
could learn these games, no one would buy them,
and yet players will not accept easy, dumbed-down, 1. Identity
or short games. At a deeper level, however, challenge No deep learning takes place unless learners make
and learning are a large part of what makes good an extended commitment of self. Learning a new
video games motivating and entertaining. Humans domain, whether it be physics or furniture-making,
actually enjoy learning, though sometimes in school requires the learner to take on a new identity: to
you would not know it. make a commitment to see and value work and the
world in the ways in which good physicists or good
A QUESTION OF CONTENT furniture makers do. Good video games capture play-
ers through identity. Players either inherit a strongly

B efore I talk about learning in games, I must deal formed and appealing character for example, Solid
with the content question. People are prone to Snake in Metal Gear Solid or they get to build a
say, in a dismissive way, What you learn when you character from the ground up, as in Elder Scrolls III:
learn to play a video game is just how to play the Morrowind. Either way, players become committed
game. Ironically, we actually find here our first good to the new virtual world in which they will live, learn,
learning principle. Some people think of learning and act through their commitment to their new iden-
in school for example, learning biology as all tity. Why should the identity of being a scientist and
about learning facts that can be repeated on a writ- doing science be less appealing?
ten test. Decades of research, however, have shown 2. Interaction
that students taught under such a regime, though they
may be able to pass tests, cannot actually apply their Plato in the Phaedrus famously complained that
knowledge to solve problems or understand the con- books are passive; you cannot get them to talk back
ceptual lay of the land in the area that they are learn- to you in a real dialogue the way that a person can
ing (see Gardner 1985). face-to-face. Games do talk back. In fact, nothing
happens until a player acts and makes decisions.
A science such as biology is not a set of facts. In Then the game reacts, giving the player feedback and
reality, it is a game that certain types of people new problems. In a good game, words and deeds are
play. These people engage in characteristic sorts of all placed in the context of an interactive relation-
activities, use characteristic tools and language, and ship between the player and the world. So, too, in
hold certain values; that is, they play by a certain set school, texts and textbooks need to be put in contexts
of rules. They do biology. Of course, they learn, of interaction where the world and other people talk
use, and retain lots and lots of facts even produce back.
them but the facts come from and with the doing.

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 GOOD VIDEO GAMES AND GOOD LEARNING

3. Production
Players are producers, not just
consumers; they are writers,
not just readers. Even at the
simplest level, players co-design
games by the actions that they
take and the decisions that they
make. An open-ended game such
as Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
is, by the end, a different game
for each player. In a massive mul-
tiplayer game such as World of
WarCraft, thousands of people
create different virtual careers
through their own unique choices
in a world that they share with
many others. At a higher level,
many games come with versions
of the software with which they
are made, and players can modify
them. Such modifications range
from building new skate parks
in Tony Hawk or creating new
scenarios in Age of Mythology,

Copyright Matthew Henry Hall. Reprinted by permission. www.matthewhenryhall.com

to building whole new games.
Players help write the worlds in
which they live in school, they
should help write the domain
and the curriculum that they
study.
4. Risk Taking
Good video games lower the
consequences of failure; play-
ers can start from the last-saved
game when they fail. Players are
thereby encouraged to take risks,
explore, and try new things. In
fact, in a game, failure is a good
thing. Facing a boss (that is, a
new level of problems), the player
uses initial failures as ways to
find the bosss pattern and to gain
feedback about the progress being
made. School too often allows
much less space for risk, explora-
tion, and failure.
5. Customization
Players can usually, in one
way or another, customize a game
to fit their learning and playing Players can even try out new styles, thanks to the
styles. Games often have different difficulty levels, risk-taking principle above. Customized curricula in
and many good games allow players to solve prob- school should not just be about self-pacing, but about
lems in different ways. In a role-playing game, the real intersections between the curriculum and the
distinctive attributes that players choose for their learners interests, desires, and styles.
characters determine how the game will be played.

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GOOD VIDEO GAMES AND GOOD LEARNING

6. Agency of experiences they refer to that is, to the sorts of

actions, images, or dialogues that the words relate
Thanks to all the preceding principles, players feel to (Barsalou 1999; Glenberg 1997). This gives the
a real sense of agency and control and a real sense of words situated meanings, not just verbal ones. And,
ownership over what they are doing. Such ownership indeed, words have different situated meanings in dif-
is rare in school. ferent contexts (consider The coffee spilled, go get a
7. Well-Ordered Problems mop versus The coffee spilled, go get a broom).
Games always situate the meanings of words in terms
Research has shown that when learners are left of the actions, images, and dialogues that they relate
free to roam in a complex problem space as they to, and show how they vary across different actions,
sometimes are in permissive hands-on environ- images, and dialogues. They do not just offer words
ments they tend to hit on creative solutions to for words. School should not either.
complex problems, but these solutions do not lead to
good hypotheses about how to solve later, even easier 11. Pleasantly Frustrating
problems (Elman 1991). In good video games, the Thanks to many of the principles above, good
problems players face are ordered so that the earlier games stay within, but at the outer edge, of the
ones are well built to lead players to form hypotheses players regime of competence (diSessa 2000). That
that work well for later, harder problems. It matters is, they feel doable, but challenging. This state is
how the problem space is organized that is why highly motivating for learners. School is often too
games have levels. Equal attention needs to be paid easy for some students and too hard for others, even
to how to order problems in a rich immersive space in the same classroom.
in a science classroom, for example.
12. System Thinking
8. Challenge and Consolidation
Games encourage players to think about relation-
Good games offer players a set of challenging ships, not isolated events, facts, and skills. In a game
problems and then let them solve these problems such as Rise of Nations, for instance, players need
until their solutions are virtually automatic. Then the to think of how each action taken might affect their
game throws a new class of problems at the play- future actions and the actions of the other players
ers, requiring them to rethink their now taken-for- playing against them as they all move their civiliza-
granted mastery, learn something new, and integrate tions through the ages. In our complex global society,
this new learning with their old mastery. In turn, this such system thinking is crucial for everyone.
new mastery is consolidated through repetition (with
variation), only to be challenged again. This cycle 13. Explore, Think Laterally, Rethink Goals
has been called the Cycle of Expertise (Bereiter
& Scardamalia 1993); it is the way anyone becomes My schooling taught me, as it did many other
an expert at anything worth being an expert in. In Baby Boomers, that being smart is moving as fast and
school, sometimes the poorer students do not get efficiently to your goal as possible. Games encour-
enough opportunity to consolidate, and the good age a different attitude. They encourage players to
students do not get enough real challenges to their explore thoroughly before moving on; to think later-
school-based mastery. ally, not just linearly; and to use such exploration and
lateral thinking to reconceive ones goals from time to
9. Just-in-Time and On Demand time. This process sounds just like what many a mod-
ern high-tech, global workplace wants (Gee, Hull, &
People are quite poor at dealing with lots of words Lankshear 1996).
out of context; that is why textbooks are so ineffi-
cient. Games almost always give verbal information 14. Smart Tools and Distributed Knowledge
either just in time, that is, right when players need
and can use it; or on demand, that is, when the The virtual character or characters that one
player feels a need for it, wants it, is ready for it, and manipulates in a game and many other aspects
can make good use of it. Information should work of the game world are, in reality, smart tools.
the same way in school. Characters have skills and knowledge of their own
that they lend to the player. For example, in Full
10. Situated Meanings Spectrum Warrior, the soldiers whom the player con-
trols know how to move to and to take various for-
People are poor at learning what words mean mations in battle. Thus, this information is something
when all they get is a definition that spells out what it the player does not have to know. What the player
means in terms of other words. Recent research sug- must know is when and where to order each forma-
gests that people know what words mean and learn tion so that the soldiers can move safely from cover
new ones only when they can hook them to the sorts to cover. The knowledge that it takes to play the

36 PHI KAPPA PHI FORUM/VOL. 85, NO.2

game is distributed among the player and the soldiers. REFERENCES
In a massive multiplayer game, players work in teams Barsalou, L. W. Perceptual Symbol Systems. Behavorial and
where each member contributes his or her distinctive Brain Sciences 22.4 (1999): 577660.
skills. The core knowledge needed to play the game is
Bereiter, C. & M. Scardamalia. Surpassing Ourselves: An
now distributed among a set of real people and their Inquiry Into the Nature and Implications of Expertise.
smart virtual characters. Smart tools and distributed Chicago: Open Court, 1993.
knowledge are key to modern workplaces, though Cazden, C. Performance before Competence: Assistance to
not always to modern schools. Child Discourse in the Zone of Proximal Development.
Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative
15. Cross-Functional Teams Human Cognition 3.1 (1981): 58.
When players play a massive multiplayer game diSessa, A. A. Changing Minds: Computers, Learning, and
such as World of WarCraft, they often play in teams Literacy. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000.
(parties) in which each player has a different set of Elman, J. Incremental Learning, or the Importance of Starting
skills (say a Mage, a Warrior, or a Druid). Players Small. Technical Report 9101, Center for Research in
must each master their own specialty (function), Language, University of California at San Diego. San Diego:
CA, 1991.
because, for example, a Mage plays quite differ-
ently from a Warrior, but they also must understand Gardner, H. The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think and
enough of each others specializations to integrate How Schools Should Teach. New York: Basic Books, 1991.
and coordinate with the others (cross-functional Gee, J. P., G. Hull, & C. Lankshear. The New Work Order:
understanding). Furthermore, in such teams, people Behind the Language of the New Capitalism. Boulder, Co.:
are affiliated by their commitment to a common Westview, 1996.
endeavor, not primarily by their race, class, ethnicity, Gee, J. P. Situated Language and Learning: A Critique of
or gender. These latter are available as resources for Traditional Schooling. London: Routledge, 2004.
the whole group if and when they are needed and if Gee, J. P. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About
and when the player wishes to use them. Again, such Learning and Literacy. New York: Palgrave/Macmillan,
forms of affiliation are commonly demanded in mod- 2003.
ern workplaces, though not always in modern schools Gee, J. P. Why Video Games Are Good For Your Soul: Pleasure
(Gee 2004). and Learning. Melbourne: Common Ground, 2005.
Glenberg, A. M. What Is Memory For? Behavioral and Brain
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Good video games operate by a principle just the
reverse of most schools: performance before compe-
tence (Cazden 1981). Players can perform before they
are competent, supported by the design of the game,
the smart tools that the game offers, and often,
too, the support of other, more advanced players (in
multiplayer games, in chat rooms, or standing there
in the living room). Language acquisition itself works
this way. However, schools frequently do not. They
often demand that students gain competence through
reading texts before they can perform in the domain
that they are learning.
So the question that I leave you with is not about
the use of games in school though using them is a
good idea but this: How can we make learning in
and out of school, with or without using games, more
game-like in the sense of using the sorts of learning
principles that young people see in good games every
day, when and if they are playing these games reflec-
tively and strategically? Figuring out how to achieve
this goal is a worthwhile endeavor.

James Paul Gee is the Tashia Morgridge Professor of

Reading at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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