Date
07/08/2006
Neverwinter Nights: World—Society— Federation—Nation—? Video Game Music in a Learning Experience

E. Thomas Eriksson

Objective
The aim is to create understanding and an essential knowledge base concerning learning abilities in the genre of interactive multimedia fantasy based online role playing game.

Question
What do gamers and professionals learn about state and society in the game Neverwinter Nights and how does this relate to the game's sound-design, music and overall auditive environment?

Theory and concepts

Play and learning-strategies

Life in play

The meaning of playing is learning, according to the social-anthropologist Norman (1996). In the contemporary western societies the play is a human right, manifested in the UN declaration of human rights, a right for every child, but not for grown ups. The difference between play and work have been great the last hundred years, as the divide between childhood and adulthood. The main incitement for playing, says Norman, is to transform the lived life-world of the child. The play is situational, dependent on all persons contributing and other aspects in the play situation and in the world surrounding it. In a game situation, at the other hand, rules govern and ways to carry out actions are controled and regulated by known processes. Games are set up in a situation clearly separated from the ordinary living world and games are also more abstract in their forms than playing. The play is manifested in a symbolic space in between individuals and the surrounding. In this space can experiences and concepts of the world be transformed and re-created, a perspective from the psychoanalytic D.W. Winnicott (p. 125 ff.)

When the children grow older the more they differ out and grove apart from each other guided by gender and class etc. The manifested distinguished development could be served as demarkations against others. Different abilities, rights, tastes and other things are characteristic differences that could be utilized for creation of situational meanings. (p. 128).

Many forms of play borrow over from the world of grown ups: war games, thief and police and store-keeping. This play forms are not just a simple unproblematic imitation but contain elements of transformation and change of conceptualizations, relations, experiences and cooperations in a teamwork. As the players grove up, the social play develops further and engage more and more individuals. New dynamics evolve where a few get awarded with a possibility to manage and others given lesser space (p. 129).

Non-institutionalized learning

Liberty, learning, freedom from curriculum – could be the catch phrase, when introducing the non-institutionalized learning styles, learning outside the formal learning institutions space, aims, frames, goals, plans and contexts, a learning process often understood as not planed, chaotic, driven by unclear goals not aimed to teach any specific knowledge. Non-institutional learning is carried out on the spare time outside school setting, in the family or at breaks in the school day. We could also describe this kind of learning as a informal learning. From the viewpoint of formal learning this is informal, unstructured and in contrast to the formal learning taking place in school settings. Examples of non-formal non-institutionalized learning are: play, game, open activities without clear-cut from above defined aims and goals.

In the cases of non-instiutionalized learning the young people's own development, goals and interests are governing the learning environment.

If grown ups commit their selves in conducting in contexts of non-institutionalized informal open ended learning, endeavor to train the ability to adopt an other individual's perspective taking important. It is decisive to have the ability to be evolved and sensitive to be able to carry out different roles and approaches. In this described types of learning contexts great opportunities are presented for the ability of adaption and variation of a multitude and diversity of roles, preferences and competences, according to Engdal (2004).

Distributed open learning

In the anthology Innovation in Open and Distant Education (2001) the authors, scholars from a hand-full universities around the globe, among them Bruce King from University of Southern Australia, presents a overview of a international trend of change and updating of the ways universities practice education, with development of IT-solutions making courses and programs available on the Internet.

Educational programs that has become distributed are getting accessible to more and more students around the whole world. Flexible Learning Centre at University of South Australia, is a department striving at a student focused learning style with integration of new IT. With the developed system students from many countries can participate in courses on a standard platform capable to be adapted to large scale implementation. A open learning model used means a more free learning strategies can be adopted where time and place become more flexible parameters than recent learning forms in the university context. (King 2001, s. 53 ff.).

Learning in digital games

Digital game

The concepts are often blurred and unclear in the field of games implemented and played on computers, gaming consoles, hand helds etc. Prensky below is using the concept of digital game spanning over all types of games on a digital technology platform. The definition of a digital game is then: a game played on a digital device as a gaming console (video game) or a PC (or Mac, Linux etc.) (computer game). Often the term video game is used for all digital games with imagery produced with video circuit-technology and presented on a video screen (CRT or LCD/TFT). This later concept in translation from swedish should be television game blurring the field even more. From now on I use the concept digital game focusing on the base or centre, the digital technology and the digital central unit and processor.

Learning in game contexts

Marc Prensky (former banker at what is currently a branch of Deutche Bank) a developer of games aimed to train. He aims to turn the consensus away from the currently dominating mostly negative discourses in society about digital games. Prensky to the opposite puts forward a collection of positive spiced effects of digital gaming on children's, youth's and young people's development and growth. He is in this context focused in how learning could be evolved in ordinary commercially available games. In contemporary popular entertaining games, like the Sims young people in a ironic way learn to raise awareness of and reflect on aspects of the social system of market economy and capitalism we all are living in and are dependent on in the late modernity. In Grand Theft Auto, a game focused on car jacking and criminality, the player learn how the legal system works and that criminal acts are incorrect and will be a matter of sanctions and punishment from the society.

It's not evident that the visualized frames and plots presented in a game, is corresponding to the concepts effective in the players' minds when playing. The actual play could be touching something other than the obvious, like questions in life important for the player to handle, and the game could in this process serve as a testbed or lab. (Prensky 2002)

Why games teach

Becker a doctoral candidate at Faculty of Education at University of Calgary, gives almost a cook book recipe of why and how digital games available in the market space are educative. The games are so because they are engaging and play and learning are linked, with play as a condition for deep learning. Players are simply learners. Games are attractive and gaining attention. Games give the player an objective and a back story recalling prior learning. Often the learner has experience in the story before playing, sometimes in the form of a presented story in a cut-scene before the actual interactive gaming take place. Games gives feedback and reinforcement, and also gives ability to make assessment and make a good performance. Learning skills are trained, skills that are generally applicable. Games present summaries, and gives a well-paced progressing from easy to hard. Games gives analogies to previous published games, games the player has played before, making it easier to progress. In order to reach the games goal, many choices have to be made leading to the development of strategic thinking. This is just some example of a collection of games possibilities to support and facilitate learning.

Digital game based learning

Digital game based learning is a concept used by Mark Prensky (2001) through out his book in the subject of learning about learning in video games and how to use that knowledge when designing new games with learning intentions. Prensky put forward that digital game based learning is possible when the designers make a game with learning intentions and not goes the other way around and make a learning device with gaming elements glued to it. According to Prensky designing good games with abilities to learn defined skills is the subject of digital game-based learning.

The identity of roleplaying

Three identities in cooperation are adopted when playing a digital Role Playing Game (RPG), states James Paul Gee, professor of linguistics. First there is the identity outside the game, the real world me. Second is the virtual game identity constructed and developed inside the RPG, the character you are playing. A third identity a projected identity is unfold and serving as a projection of your real identity in to the game and the fact you are in the creation of a project in a developing digital game. These three identities are in cooperation in a game situation. (Gee 2003, p. 50 ff.)

The gamer identity and social/generational group

The book Got Game is written by the authors and researchers, John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade, who are academics with majors in finance. The researchers is drawing up the lines of a new generation consisting of gamers of digital games, a social group on the way to entering the industry and labor force. Beck and Wade have chosen to study the Gamer, the term to put spotlight on the players of video games understood as a group. Gamers are defined as young people, actually everybody in western society in an age of 35 or less. The authors present a complete framework defining the game generation, the generation who have grown up with video games as a natural element in the everyday life. The gamer generation is made up out of 90 million individuals and is currently larger than the preceding baby boomer generation.

The authors materializes questions involving gamers adjustment to the labour market, conflicts between generations and social aspects on game culture. The authors claim that the people of the gamer generation are: masters of multitasking (obtaining control of several processes at a time), good problem solvers, implementers of trial and error strategies in an open learning style and rejectors of ready made solutions. Gamers also have a strong feeling of self esteem and are competitive. These capacities and competences have to relate to the experiences which have been obtained in extensive video gaming, according to Beck and Wade.

How are gejmers as employees? Adequate risk takers, competitive and result demanding. As managers the gamers will want to solve problems by them selves but with information collected from other colleges. Gamers also have great ability to manipulate images in their internal memory. The gejmers are different than the generations before as caused of extensive gaming experiences.

However, the gaming experience is a common denominator and a crucial factor in many ways for all young people in today's society. Boomer echoes, Y-ers etc. as the gamer generation also are called, is a new generation in the making, a group with a common social characteristic formed in a new zeitgeist. Looking at the precursor, the boomers (typically born in the 40-ies), they are often looked at as a homogenous group with special characteristics, partly moulded through the media-form that established itselves as dominating at the time the boomers where young – Television.

The researchers call attention to the extensive quantity of time which is used for gaming and that gamers mostly consist of young grown ups, not kids. The interest in gaming is something that endure despite increasing age. When the gejmers entering the labour force, the older executives and managers have to accept this new ways of working when they want to motivate and promote loyalty, that couldn't be reached with traditional parties and picnics, but more probably with the aid of gaming events, because gamers are social, but in a new way. Video gaming is not a hype, it's modern history with over two decades and one centre of modern mainstream popular media culture.The gamers are now becoming a powerful key segment for companies marketing efforts. 50% of all households in the US owns a Playstation, and it's calculated that 70% of the US population will buy the second generation consoles. But these numbers doesn't say it will gain a totality in domination and penetration of the home entertaining environments in the way TV has.

Game genres

Below I intend to give a short presentation and description of two game genres (based on Wiklund 2005).

Adventure games. Adventure games focus on analytical and spatial abilities, patience and problem solving. The game world is often large containing hidden features with time-consuming exploration as a result. Often the gamer is prevented to access parts of the game world until the player has found out how to operate in the right manner. The feelings is important and for that sake adventure game worlds could be artistically developed, with great resources allocated to physical appearance and atmosphere. 3D-graphics with unrestricted movement abilities are getting more common.