More than Just a Pastime

The concept of games having two distinguishable layers, rules and fiction, is an interesting one. The example presented by Raph Koster shows how different Tetris becomes when you change the context of the puzzle game. When the moving shapes are nothing more than colored blocks, the focus is on the game’s design and gameplay. But when the game becomes killing victims in a gas chamber, the gameplay itself is overlooked for its questionable theme.

When the situation is reversed, however, the same change of opinion is not applied. House of the Dead is an arcade game, famous for the hordes of zombies and other monsters that the player shoots at with a gun controller. The game isn’t much deeper than that. The deformed monsters lunging toward the player on-screen represent, well, deformed monsters. An alternate version of this mindless shooting game, Typing of the Dead, replaces gun with keyboard and bullets with quick and accurate typing skills. But Typing of the Dead isn’t a game one will typically find in schools teaching children how to spell and type.

Why does this double standard exist? Many people only look at the surface of a game, failing to see the brilliant design of a game or the skills that it is teaching the player. Games have the potential to be an invaluable device for teaching, achieving a level of interactivity that books and lectures cannot. If we can get past the short-sighted mindset of all games causing violence, corrupting our youth, and preventing learning from occurring, games can become more than just a pastime or distraction.