New Course Discusses Video Game Design and How Gaming Has Shaped History
New Course Discusses Video Game Design and How Gaming Has Shaped History
New Course Discusses Video Game Design and How Gaming Has Shaped History
By Zhijie Huang
May 15, 2022
Summary
The course teaches students how history is represented in games, how games have influenced history, and which methods are used in video game research.
"We wanted to convey some of these ideas about how to do research about video games, about how to think about video games historically, and how to study video games like novels or films," Bolman said.
"How do we introduce enough of a game that people understand it, and they can talk about it without having to spend six weeks playing a single game?" Bolman said.
"A class about one video game is very different from a class about ten video games." Bolman explained that they wanted to introduce a game in which the students can explore randomly generated emergent historical events under the "Big, vast history" that the game creates.
"You could play this game for 600 hours or something if you wanted," Bolman said, "But it is hard to guarantee that they'll have the exact experience as the one that we want." The instructors have been impressed by how the students' analysis of the games have improved throughout the quarter.
"We've seen a real development just in that ability to engage with a game and think about its context and the choices that the developers made." Bolman hopes that younger students in the class can continue researching video games using the methods and topics taught in class.
"If we do a really good job," Bolman said, "We would train a small future generation of video game researchers." Buse and Bolman plan to offer the course again next year and encourage all interested students to enroll in the course.
Reference
Huang, Z. (2022, May 15). New course discusses video game design and how gaming has shaped history. Retrieved May 21, 2022, from https://chicagomaroon.com/article/2022/5/15/new-course-discusses-video-game-design-gaming-shaped-history/