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There are 17 comments on One Class, One Day: Playing Games

  1. I’m sure these students will learn more about writing by playing video games than they would by reading Plato or Shakespeare or Burke. And playing “World of Warcraft” sounds far more intellectually worthwhile than, say, studying the French Revolution or Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” or Picasso’s “Guernica.” Thank goodness BU has done away with “Learning, Virtue, Piety,” and embraced “Fun, Games, Informality” as the purpose of higher education.

  2. Do I detect a hint of jealousy in the comment below? Maybe I’m confusing it with simply the inability to be open minded about what should or shouldn’t be taught in a college class. It’s a lower level writing class that is not intended for majors or students really interested in English.

    When cast members of the Jersey Shore are delivering commencement speeches, bring out the hate. Otherwise, perhaps you should reconsider damning the University over the content of one class.

  3. Please Google “Extra Credits” and his lecture series of Video Games and art. Video games can be a medium as deep as any form of literature or cinema. I believe that in the future years as cost and ease decreases as well as the increasing flexiblity of video games to depict actual environments, we will see increasing number of games that explore subjects as creative as Shakespeare, as thoughtful as Plato, and as insightful as Tolstoy.

    What keeps games from being that level (though some have started to come out with the past few years) is the technology didn’t allow us to pursue it (and the subsequent first 25 years as a medium only for children whereas movies, didn’t have that handicap that required more time to depict the world in on a few bits and began only as a toy). But are reaching that point that the technology can pursue it and able to pursue it without such a tangent need to delve into only coding.

  4. I’d like to respond to the “Scorn delights and live laborious days?” poster.

    I actually took this class, and I DID learn more from that class than I ever did with Shakespeare. Videogames can be very, very similar to a play. Except there are even MORE elements, since the user interacts with the play. While I’m not saying that Shakespeare is pointless, it is highly irrelevant nowadays. It is simply outdated.

    You gave the example “World of Warcraft”. I’ve learned more about how society works from playing that game and analyzing it then I ever did from reading Shakespeare or other related work. Why? The game is relevant and current. The language is modern (in fact, the game actually created a huge subculture and a large amount of new language). And you play with other, real people in this world.

    I remember some researchers analyzing how a virtual plague spread through the game, and how they could study how infectious diseases could spread given some parameters set by the game. Much of it related to the psychology of human panic.

    I believe I remember Prof. Bushnell said once in class that videogames are the modern version of Shakespearean plays and older movies/TV shows. I now see how right he is. We’ve gone from a static form of entertainment of a presentation/play to a dynamic interaction that involves the user. The only advancement I can see now is a videogame that changes (I mean as in the source code changing itself) as the user interacts with it.

    Don’t think of videogames as a kid’s form of entertainment, but of the next step in entertainment. 500 years from now World of Warcraft will be studied the way Shakespeare or Tolstoy is now.

  5. Now I was who posted on 4/28 who spoke in your defense against that poster. And while I pretty sure you’ll never read this at this point, I have to state that I cannot stand by and agree that Shakespeare is highly irrelevant. Even worse, to state that World of Warcraft is equal to Shakespeare is insulting both to the potential of gaming as an art medium and to Shakespeare.

    Gaming have just recently broach the threshold where it can start to push storytelling and interaction in more meaningful way. I hate to cite this naysayer, but one man made a great erudite point. Rodger Egbert in his infamous article “Video games can never be art” cited the primitive film Le Voyage dans la Lune released in 1902 as an example of how even a film that primitive still show more imagination. I can’t agree with him that video games can never be an art (and he did pulled back from that), but he’s correct that games have started to nip at the level of imagination and artistry that the 1902 film in taking advantage of the medium.

    Finally, your points that back your premise is even more infuriating.

    First, using more modern language doesn’t equal a superior work. That’s like saying The Last Airbender is better than The Godfather because it is 20 years younger with 20 years of language evolution. Even with 2000 years, it is the content, not the words that matter.

    Second, your point of how World of Warcraft created new language and subcultures does not subtract at all classical works. Do you know how much Shakespeare influenced modern English? Did you know that he personally coined 1,700 words and countless phrases we use that don’t realize? You vastly underestimate his influence versus WoW.

    Third your citation of how WoW uses real people is EVEN MORE INFURIATING. I could first point to the large number of parodies of how people behave in WoW that cast doubt how on much one can learn as they gank you… But I think I will focus that your statement indirectly attacks games that doesn’t use multi-player and focus on narrative. Your statement dismisses games that use other techniques to advance the medium. Way to attack your own cause.

    So in short, the reason you learned more from Video Games than Shakespeare is because you never gave it real interest to actually understand it. Not because it is out of date and irrelevant. Shakespeare and any other work contains PLENTY of insightful ideas we can learn directly from the story or indirectly from analysis of particular works.

    Now I apologize that I have to rip you a new one for we are in alliance that games can be art. But I cannot stand to read your counter-argument and find that it is so poorly argued. All forms of art have its place. Games is the new form that will join its ranks in the future. With enough time, we will have game designers that will rank up with greats of all art forms including people such as Shakespeare, Picasso, Keats, and Hitchcock. Also, there still much more evolving to do. Do you think we are really done yet? There’s still much more.*

    *I also want to note as a CS major that your idea of a game rewriting source code is naive to say the least, but that’s a separate thing to write about.

  6. Gaming isn’t a medium comparable to Plato or Tolstoy? Ever play Bioshock, Grand Theft Auto IV, or even Call of Duty 4? You haven’t??? I rest my case…

  7. Dear BU Today, please include a like/thumbs up feature for comments. I would’ve loved to like this comment:
    “To the “To the close-minded one” poster of 5/04″

  8. I think games are beneficial to students. A successful game, for example, World of Warcraft, includes a completed story background and interesting structure which is so important for students to give some ideas to improve their writing skills.

  9. An Interesting article! Although I am a girl who seldom plays video game as they are too difficult fir me, I agree that the video game could be one of good sources to inspire students’ interests, attention and even passion on the things what they learn at the class.

  10. Teaching and learning are not only to get knowledge and information from books and professors, but to try to make use of some ways in which students can grasp points more easily. Video games include some similar structures as writing, and games can better inspire students to focus with their passion, creation and intelligence. In this successful case, we can see that this kind of education is highly popularized and accepted in BU. And of course, students can both learn more and feel free when they are talking to their professor.

  11. I agree some of that.. It would be fun and intersting for students who have studied only in books. It also might encourage students to concentrate on their study more easily. But, there are some questions.. Can students really learn about society or personality of gamers or social interactions through game?? Also, can students really apply those things that learned by game in real life?? i don’t think so.

  12. I am really into this kind of teaching method. Although I am a girl, I like playing games a lot, especially the World of Warcraft. I played the map called ZhenSanguoWushuang” for almost two years. And from this game, I learned many things about related history. So in my opinion, this teaching method combined writing courses with games will work effectively. By playing PC games, we can acquire knowledge as well as enjoy ourselves, why not?

  13. True: A useful college writing course may be developed around any topic of study, including video games.
    False: The study of video games in a college writing course is an equivalent substitute for the study of Shakespeare.

    True: The medium of video gaming has the potential to contain works as substantial and lasting as those in other media like literature and cinema.
    False: The medium of video gaming has already issued works as substantial and lasting as those in other media like literature and cinema.

    True: A college student may argue, without any hint of self-awareness or intellectual humility, that “while the study of Shakespeare is not pointless, it is irrelevant nowadays, and simply outdated”.
    False: A college student may argue persuasively, without any hint of self-awareness or intellectual humility, that “while the study of Shakespeare is not pointless, it is irrelevant nowadays, and simply outdated”.

    True: 500 years from now World of Warcraft may be studied the way Shakespeare or Tolstoy is now.
    False: We need not be concerned that the trends seems to indicate that 500 years from now World of Warcraft will be studied the way Shakespeare or Tolstoy is now.

    True: The medium of gaming is comparable to Plato or Tolstoy.
    False: When compared to Tolstoy and Plato, Bioshock and GTAIV look like works of substance.

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