The Current Scene of DGBL Technology

          The world of gaming has never been more active or exciting since its beginnings in the early 1970’s with coin operated video games like Galaxy Game and Computer Space in 1971 Wolf (2012). According to Education Software Association’s 2016 annual report, “more than 150 million Americans play video games” (p.1). The average age of a video game player is thirty-five. The rise in computing technology has led to computer-based programs, arcades, home-based consoles, internet-based games, handheld gaming systems, mobile-based gaming, and now virtual reality gear for home-based consoles and smartphones. Since the 1970’s DGBL activities have been increasing. Reports on teenage gaming habits indicate there are good reasons to pay more attention to what students are doing when they play games.

          Console-based gaming has changed a great deal since the Magnavox Odyssey came out in 1971. The Education Software Association (2014) claimed that, “51 percent of American households own a console, and those that do own on average of 2” (p.4). In 2016, the Entertainment Software Association reported, “63 percent of households are home to at least one video game player who plays regularly” (p.2). The big players in the digital gaming industry, Valve Corporation, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo have created some of the most popular console-based gaming systems to date. It is classic rhetoric amongst middle students to debate about which video gaming console is the best. Lately, the argument has been about whether Xbox One is better than Playstation 4, or vice-versa, and the argument usually falls on two students who own opposing consoles or viewpoints. Such are the conversations that can lead to great classroom discussions and inquiry as to which console is best, to whom, and why. In my past classes, personal computer gamers rarely argued about who had the more capable machine compared to users of different gaming systems. New technologies, like the Playstation VR, set to come out in fall of 2016, will create innovative places for researchers to examine what learning looks like in virtual reality spaces. These devices, used as learning tools, will be capable of propelling teachers’ and students’ understanding of empathy and storytelling into new realms. Players will be able to become the character in the video game they are playing, and this new stance of what it means to play may change what it means to empathize within narrative spaces and texts. Researchers like Murray (1997) believed that video games would serve a greater role in developing interactive narratives, and indeed they have over the years with classics like Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3. Brown (2008) says, “If videogames, like literature would transform consciousness and enthrall both critical and popular audiences, its creators must be artists as well as artisans, trained in the craft of writing, as well as the use of the complex tools necessary to tell stories in this new medium” (p.19).

Personal computer gaming, or better known as (PC gaming) has taken rise and is favored among many experienced and not-so experienced gamers around the world. The world of computer gaming encases more users than any other medium of digital-game based learning environments. Using computing power via laptop, tablet, or desktop, players can access thousands of games on-demand from STEAM, owned by the Valve Corporation. New to the scene digital gaming are customizable personal gaming PCs, like Alienware, made specifically to run STEAM and thousands of other video games that function like a typical console experience. League of Legends, owned by Riot Games, has surpassed World of Warcraft in users and as the top cooperatively competitive massive open online game. Tassi (2014) reported on figures that 27 million people play the game daily, and 67 million players play the game every month.

Students’ uses of mobile-based gaming have also increased in recent years. Holden (2012) says, “I believe that mobile, place-based games provides many opportunities for instantiating powerful pedagogical techniques that may have been difficult or impossible for individual instructors to enact previously” (p.43). Mobile-based games like Clash Royale, Clash of Clans, Pokemon Go, Hearthstone, Minecraft: Pocket Edition are considered current favorites within the scene of players today. These games have come a long way since mobile-based games began to appear on phones. Schilling (2011) reminds us it was Tetris that first appeared as a mobile game in 1994 on the Hagenuk MT-2000. Soon after, Snake appeared on Nokia’s 6110 in 1997. Since Snake, mobile-based games have evolved in their complexity into games like Clash Royale, which came out in 2016, and expects its players to understand the use of fifty-eight different character’s attributes and limitations during gameplay, whereas Nokia’s Snake required its users to learn one character’s attributes and limitations during gameplay. Games like Pokemon Go expect players learn about two hundred and fifty different characters in the game in order to master the game’s uses of character evolution. Now, smartphones with internet capabilities are calling researchers to examine these video games and the many hours in which its users, young and old, are playing and learning. Mobile-based games like Clash of Clans and Clash Royale are classroom favorites among my former students. Often our classroom warm-up was to pull out the smartphones and to play one another in either Clash Royale or Clash of Clans. This got kids motivated and ready to learn for the period.

Understanding the different DGBL systems that are used today are important when examining what it means to learn in a DGBL environment. Smartphones, virtual reality gear, PCs, and console-based gaming machines are all technologically afforded machines that give us new digital game-based environments to examine and research what it means to learn within them. Understanding the different types of technology players use is the first step towards understanding what it means to learn in a DGBL environment. Dondlinger (2007) points out there has been a shift in focus as literature reviews in the last decade have examined what students learned from video games instead of how we learn using video games (Aguilera & Mendiz, 2003; O’Neil, Wainess, & Barker, 2005).
                   By: Miles Harvey        Contact me @ mharvey64@gmail.com