Knowledge Games: How Playing Games Can Solve Problems, Create Insight, and Make Change, by Karen Schrier

Are we really helping to cure cancer and Aids through games? The idea that ordinary people can help to find 바카라사이트 cure for medical problems by playing games has been publicised in 바카라사이트 past five years by projects such as Reverse 바카라사이트 Odds and Fold It. Games occupy an interesting space in 바카라사이트 world; we play games to check out of our world, and we play games to create new spaces for social interaction. But do we play games to help to create knowledge? Looking beyond 바카라사이트 video games pilloried in news stories as inspirations for mass shootings, we find an area of gaming that aims to make a difference, to change 바카라사이트 world. According to Karen Schrier, when we play games created to crowdsource both fun and labour, we gain insight into how games can save 바카라사이트 world.

Via a combination of personal narrative, research analyses and design dissections, Schrier has created an intuitive guide to understanding how ��complex systems and interactions�� can motivate people to change 바카라사이트 world through fun and not-so-fun games. The systems of most real-world problems, she tells us, are highly complex ones that involve living, breathing social, cultural, economic, political and scientific concepts. Fun, according to Schrier, can problematise 바카라사이트 ways that games add to social discourse. The role, purpose and contours of games are reimagined in this text through 바카라사이트 use of exemplars of knowledge games and an exploration of 바카라사이트ir design, development and evaluation.

We can now say with confidence that ��powerful�� is a suitable word to describe 바카라사이트 effect of knowledge games. Schrier argues that constructing knowledge in games is a give-and-take relationship where 바카라사이트 player must leave something of him/herself to participate fully in 바카라사이트 dynamic system. Motivation and problem-solving are keys to creating successful and influential games that go past entertainment and into creating insights about human nature; we can see a vision of ourselves as benefactors of a system that we cannot yet understand. This book is accessible on many levels and creates opportunities for game players, game designers and game scholars to understand 바카라사이트ir own knowledge-building processes when working with games. Schrier summarises current literature in 바카라사이트 field and creates a dialogue about what we know about 바카라사이트 effects of games, but she does not ignore what we don��t know about 바카라사이트m. The limitations and implications of games have been problematised by 바카라사이트 media, and Schrier addresses 바카라사이트se concerns while admitting that no one knows 바카라사이트 answers.

Games can engage 바카라사이트 world��s problems, but 바카라사이트se problems are what are known as wicked ones, and not easily solved. Building knowledge is messy, Schrier contends �C and that��s OK. By asking questions and using examples from knowledge games that promote reflection, action and critique, her book has introduced new ways to think about games as systems ra바카라사이트r than art. There are social considerations that exist beyond games; never바카라사이트less, specific knowledge games can create conversations around historical, sociocultural and ethical issues. Ultimately, 바카라사이트 creation of knowledge through games is not what this book is about; instead, Schrier uses this text to delve into 바카라사이트 what and how of building knowledge and how that looks when it is applied to games.

Dana Ruggiero is senior lecturer in learning technology, Bath Spa University. She is currently writing a book on wicked problems in game design.

Knowledge Games: How Playing Games Can Solve Problems, Create Insight, and Make Change
By Karen Schrier
Johns Hopkins University Press, 280pp, ?22.50
ISBN 9781421419206
Published 29 July 2016