Educational Games attempt to educate players through designed gameplay. Player experience is therein a means to an end that serves as an intermediary between the designer's intent and the lesson learnt.
Didactic media such as educational games often derive their authority from retrospective analysis. Educational papers, films, and other such media are often the accumulation of history and its products, carefully sieved, analyzed, and curated to formulate a condensed wisdom readily consumable by the public. The methods by which such media are produced greatly affect public reception: the articulation of the text, the footage of the film/documentary, its editing, etc. can supplement the effectiveness of their persuasiveness through affective means.
However, no other media has greater capacity than games to affect consumer perception through subjecting the audience to designed mechanics. Games are situated in a unique realm wherein mechanical intricacies are married to player intent to complete an experience. If papers and films are two dimensional, games are three dimensional -- it is no longer media presented on a screen at the audience, but rather media presented for an audience with a controller. This obligation of player participation that is inherent to the progression of games can serve as a double-edged sword. If designed effectively and with relevance, it can amplify its didactic objective. If done carelessly and without justification, it may only be a layer of digression, or a steep route to fostering unfounded conclusions.
Phone Story and We Become What We Behold assert contestable claims with simple mechanics paired with educational caveats. Both games incline players to click a certain spot at a given time and reward narrative progression accordingly. At their base, both games seem to make positive statements describing an event and its consequences (public demand for phones, its unfavorable production process; effectiveness of a tool, and its gradual dominance over human behavior). However, the narrative that threads the cynical graphics and basic gameplay have normative undertones. The mass suicides in Phone Story, its expression of corporate interests, and We Become What We Behold's presentation of an angered public transitioning into violence: cause-effect relationships are curated in very specific ways to foster very specific opinions. Had either game been the only form of "educational" media available to the consumer, the outcome may have been just that: an unfounded, cynical understanding of a greater problem informed only by simple mechanics and amusing graphics.
The grudge I hold against these two educational games is that neither provide opportunity for refutation. There is no space for "what if?"s or "but"s. Rather, we must digest the given lesson as we partake in gameplay necessary for progression. The three dimensional capacity of expressions unique to games is therein wasted: its preference towards directed gameplay forcing a caricatured lesson down the consumer's throat rids the possibility of pedagogy through autonomous exploration. At no point can the player track the source of the game or formulate an argument for or against it. It is instead cadenced in a way that carries us along a steep and slippery slope of judgement.
Of course, a collection of these games in the form of a syllabus may render my opinions aimless rants: as a well-curated philosophy syllabus has the capacity to collect and present a plethora of charged materials that can offer comprehensive education, so can a well-formulated game syllabus. It is also true that one may assert that the sentiments expressed in both games are morally superior, or subjectively "right".
But the issue at hand is that these "educational" games are abusing their medium's capacity to invite their consumers as players. Instead of presenting players with the intricacies of reality and the vast conditions associated with their respective "lessons", they choose to select crude and polarizing representations for entertainment. Rather than attempting to educate, they decide to incline. I don't think it's enough to say that these games present different opinions. The omission of economic, social, philosophical, and political intricacies within both games are disturbingly careless (or careful, depending on intent). Such omissions must not be overlooked as difference of opinion, but rather a failure to understand and address the respective issue with responsibility. If they wish to be labelled educational (and respected as such), they must respect their medium's capacity to subject individuals to designed experiences and formulate their gameplay accordingly. If such discretion and due diligence is not practiced prior to subjecting their player base to said experiences, they are no better than the opinion sections on tabloid journalism.
To be honest I held the same grudge as you when I was playing We Become What We Behold for the first time. I could not take picture of the lovely couple advertising love and peace. What’s worse, I was forced to take pictures of the crazy lot to progress in the game. According to Gee, we were supposed to read different things off the world, while this game is implying a simple-minded crowd who would buy every word in the captions. But I say it would be more persuasive when you take the two games as warnings rather than lectures. Both games are shadowed by over-simplification, while come to think of it, they are signaling the danger by taking…
I agree with zene's general point in that serious games can portray specific points as an effective entryway to their topics of interest, so long as they spur further inquiry. For instance, if players try to verify or look up the facts portrayed in Phone Story, then the game has already served as an effective introduction to the issue.
The only danger is that the game might be too simplistic for some to take seriously and do this exploration. At least for Phone Story, the inflammatory and accusatory nature of the game serves as a means to challenge player to look further. This holds true even if people use it to justify their own complicity. (Confirmation bias could be an…
I think that both of these games do a pretty good job of providing players one view of the problems they are tackling. While I agree that they aren't portraying the most multifaceted view, I don't think that approach would be particularly useful or beneficial in this context. If phone story, in addition to criticizing the player for their complacency, made them learn about the economic, social, philosophical, and political" problems involved, I think players would be much more likely to quit before learning anything about the topic at hand. Instead, I think the pared-down approach of both games allows players to understand the creator's point of view and message in a somewhat palatable way. While it may not tell…