2. Authors
• John Wm. Folkins
• Tim Brackenbury
• Allison Hadley
• Miriam Krause
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, Ohio
Disclosure: The authors have no conflict of interest or relevant financial
or nonfinancial relationships to disclose.
3. Video Games Motivate
• People invest money in video games
– Games grossed $10.5 billion in 2009
• People willingly invest time and effort in video games
– The average gamer spends eight hours per week
playing video games
• People concentrate on video games and stay on task for
long periods of time
Reference: http://www.esrb.org/about/images/vidGames04.png
4. Video Games Motivate
• A wide variety of people play video games
– 67% of U.S. households play video games
– 40% of gamers are female
– average age of gamers is 34
– 48% of games are rated “E for Everyone”
Reference: http://www.esrb.org/about/images/vidGames04.png
5. The Appeal of Video Games is Not
Accidental
• Games of all sorts have been refined through
the years.
• Game designers are motivated to make games
more engaging.
• Principles of game design have been studied
extensively in both industry and academia.
• Principles of game design have been applied
in other contexts, e.g. education.
6. Our Purpose Today:
• Introduce five (of many possible) video game
design principles.
• Discuss ways these principles might
be applied to improve clinical
practice.
7. Five Principles of Video Game Design
1. Full Experience Principle
2. Risk Taking Principle
3. Discovery Principle
4. Generalization Principle
5. Rewards System Principle
8. Five Principles of Video Game Design
Notes:
• Not every games includes every principle
• The newer video games are particularly
relevant (sorry, Pong)
9. Five Principles of Video Game Design
Your Task:
• As we introduce each principle,
start thinking about how it could
relate to clinical practice.
10. 1. Full Experience Principle
• Many games address epic themes
– Examples of themes: allocation of limited resources
or decision making in ambiguous contexts.
• Every aspect of the game contributes to the epic
themes
• Designers make decisions to guide players in
relation to the epic themes
Example Game: Penumbra
12. 2. Risk Taking Principle
• Not too difficult, not too hard
• Failure has only small penalties and is
expected
• Innovation and individual choices are
encouraged as the risks are small
• Example Game: Braid
14. 3. Discovery Principle
• Players learn by exploration and
experimentation
• “How to” instruction is kept to a minimum
• Players are not dependent on manuals
Example Game: World of Goo
16. 4. Generalization Principle
• New knowledge is put to work right away
• Skills learned early should transfer and be
useful later
Example Game: Epic Mickey
18. 5. Rewards System Principle
• Intrinsic rewards are best—they lead to a
recognized benefit or ability
• Extrinsic rewards (pointification) can often be
used to help reach intrinsic rewards
• Both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards are
ubiquitous in video games, appealing to
individual player preferences
Example Game: Pokémon
20. • Each group gets a principle
• Discuss how it might relate to client learning
• How might current clinical practice reflect this
principle?
• What might be new ways to incorporate this
principle into practice
Groups will report out in 15 minutes.
Groups
21. Recap of the Five Principles of Video
Game Design
1. Full Experience Principle
2. Risk Taking Principle
3. Discovery Principle
4. Generalization Principle
5. Rewards System Principle
22. Group Reports
• Each group reports
• General Discussion, questions, and
observations
23. Gee, James, P. (2007) What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and
Literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Koster, Ralph (2005) A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Scottsdale AZ: Paraglyph Press.
McGonigal, Jane (2011) Reality Is Broken. New York: Penguin Press.
Orlando, John, (2011) Failure is an option: Helping Students Learn from Mistakes,
greebananablog.org: Critical Thought About Senseless Contradictions. Retrieved
on March 18, 2012 from http://greenbananablog.org/2011/05/failure-is-an-option
,
Smith-Robins, Sarah (2011) This Game Sucks: How to Improve the Gamification of
Education. Educause Review, 46(1).
Schell, Jesse (2009) The Art of Game Design. Burlington MA: Morgan Kentoran
(Elsevier).
Zichermann, Gabe and Christopher Cunningham (2011) Gamefication by Design.
Sebastopol CA: O’Reilly Media.
References & Suggested Readings
24. Video Game Movie URLs
• Penumbra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAvQAkXqnUg
• Braid
http://braid-game.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxXkcg-stLE&feature=related
• Skyrim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe_lhUuyyZw
• World of Goo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAoW9fjKmo4
• Super Mario Galaxy 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EIVDo_uuSM
• Epic Mickey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pyQLiE5wEg
Super Mario Galaxy 2, The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim (?) (I think Skyrim illustrates the principle better than SMG2, personally – AH) (We can make a video from this Skyrim trailer on Youtube to play, if you all feel that would work. Since Miriam is playing its prequel, the Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, she can speak to the nature of this game, as they have very similar discovery/exploratory gameplay elements, should we approve this change. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjqsYzBrP-M)
Use this slide to give credit for video clips or pictures of video game characters.
