Other Random question of the day

Rick and Morty roflstomp. Rick has way more gadgets and weapons that are far, far deadlier than the DeLorean, not to mention that Rick has, like, no morals, so he instantly goes for the kill.
 
I gotchu homie.

No. But I wouldn't particularly want to even if I could. What's the point? No electricity after a while. No one to talk to. You're just prolonging a lonely, boring life.
 
Yes, just not for that long. I think I know enough that I could survive for a while, but if I came across a bad disease or a wild animal that wants to attack me, my chances would immediately drop exponentially.
 
Maybe, there wouldn't really be a point though because it would be incredibly lonely without the people I love.
 
E.T on the Atari of course. Legends say that every remaining copy was destroyed.
 
Dr. jekyll and Mr. Hyde on NES. Where would we be today if it did not inspire this man with it's crapness?

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I wouldn't say educational games tend to suck, more like games that are ONLY educational tend to suck.

Oregon Trail (and pretty much anything else made by the Learning Company back in the day) was definitely an educational game, but its first job is to be entertaining, which is why a lot of people still remember it fondly to this day. Having a game that you can sell to a general audience for entertainment will allow it to end up being used educationally.
 
AlexneushoornTheGreat said:
Why do educational games have a tendency to suck?
Click to expand...


There would be three main reasons in my opinion

1.Funding
Educational games don't tend to have access to the kind of funding your average game does. When the company doesn't expect to make a profit or as much of a profit from such a game, naturally they aren't going to invest in its making and production. If they DO expect the educational game to make a profit, they expect to be selling it to teachers and parents, people who'd buy the game regardless of its real entertainment quality in some attempt to please or guide their children.

In other words, there are just a lot less resources available, including time (people need to use the time to earn the money for their own lives, hence they can dedicate less to producing a game that they don't actually expect will be all that profitable because they aren't making it for that purpose). With less resources comes poorer planning and less access to modern technologies used by other games, or otherwise if the game is more like a board game or card game, a less extensive product due to the lack of funding to produce more.

2.Education Games Runs Contrary to Why we Play Games
Mark Rosewater, a lead developer of magic the gathering, has a neat little system used by his team to think of the player base at large, dividing them into Tims, Spikes and Johnys (there's also Vorthos and another one, but those were later additions).

Tims like the splashy. They like the cool flashy things about a game, they love to explore the big thrilling moments of real amazement. Spikes are the most competitive kind. They are there because they want the challenge, more importantly they have something to prove about themselves, usually through winning. Johnys are the more creative type looking for self-expression.

It isn't hard to explain why educational games are lacking for Johnys. Johnys are probably the one most hurt by educational games, as they are their antithesis: Educational games are all about guiding someone through or into a particular path. The more answers are split into right and wrong, the more a johny feels caged. The less room there is for inconventional answers the more bored a johny will feel. A good educational game will aim to educate. Therefore such a game will be a bad experience for a Johny. And if it's a bad educational game...it will be by virtue of being a bad game.

The other two are less fundamentally opposed, and more so just find the games lacking. It's not that games of that nature can't be challenging, it's that they aren't challenging enough, or are challenging in a way that appears to be insulting you rather than inviting you to get better with pratice, because it relies on material that has nothing to do with your skill at the game, but instead relies on your skill at other aspects of life. The earlier mentioned lack of resources also makes these types of games generally more lacking when it comes to flashiness.

3.Generation Gap
One thing I've often noticed, especially when playing family games, is how often the games my parents found fun were completely outside of what me or my siblings actually enjoyed. The things they cared about or found to be "common knowledge" ran in opposition to what we did- they liked and thought natural to know the name of every river, city and field in the country and plenty more across the globe. They took games that challenged us on pieces of trivia about history and geopgraphy, matters which we didn't have any interest about, while never seeming to present any such games that incorporated modern culture at all.

The fact of the matter is that a lot of educational games are with made with the previous generation's mindset- a mindset which is, unfortunately often, a litlte outdated. There a massive disconnect when it comes to understanding basic facts of life but there certainly is a huge one when it comes to what a given culture appreciates and how they think about things.

So naturally a game made thinking through the lens of someone who appreciate things different from what you do, in a manner different from how you do it, is going to have a harder time making you connect with it. Educational games suffer from this especially because they are trying to bring you closer to the maker's thinking, instead of the maker having to try to approach YOUR way of thinking.

4.They aren't great at being games nor education
The fact of the matter is that the beautiful concept of aligning these two things has some problems for both of them. You usually get into games to unwind or to escape or for interaction- educational games pull reality into your games. Pull work into your games. It's like an infection, one corrosive to the very notion of playing the game.

Furthermore, by the limitations of being a game, they also have a limited ability to educate- and in the worst case scenario, they risk confusing the player to the point of causing them misunderstandings and misinformation.



I'd detail more, and truthfully some of this isn't worded the best way, but I wanted to give my two cents.
 
Haha. I took a advanced gaming class (making games) and we actually had a UNIT on educational games😎
Its hard to make something interesting while educating people at the same time. If you try to make it interesting and engaging you often end up learning not that much. If it leans too much towards learning they often end up bland. Lack of funding and motivation. Nobody will really want to fund a educational game, theyre not really all that profitable. If the education system funds it well they have crap funding why waste it on games?!
 
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