This is how I remember Math Blaster.

This semester I’m enrolled in a class called the Psychological and Social Effects of Games and one of the things we’ve been talking about recently is education in video games. Now before you start groaning, let me explain something, this blog will be posted in the class Google group and together we will be taking a look at your responses, so if you hate Edutainment video games, stick around, you might have a shot at changing them.

Now, as I see it, there are several types of educational games. There are the aforementioned Edutainment games, such as the Math Blaster series (which I just learned is still alive and well on the DS), the more modern Brain Age series and my favorite, the Carmen Sandiego series. There are also the games that try to teach you something with their narrative or gameplay, but don’t quite fall under the edutainment games category. I’m talking about games like History Channel: The Civil War and Sea Life Safari. And last but not least we have the games that at best, spark an interest in learning, but don’t do much teaching themselves. I am mainly referring to the Medal of Honor games, which have been known to turn its players into budding WWII scholars.


And this is how today's children will remember Math Blaster. I kind of feel sorry for them.

So if we look at the three types of games, we can see that the more educational value they have the less fun they tend to be and the worse they sell. What I want to know is, why? What makes Medal of Honor so much fun to play versus Math Blaster? Personally, I think a lot of the problem is just in our heads. As children (when we are most likely to play edutainment games) we think of learning and video games as two entirely different things, so when someone attempts to combine them, we immediately reject it and go back to playing Mario. However, it does seem like the people making Edutainment software have the same mindset. A lot of games labeled as Edutainment seem like they were created with very little care for the fun factor. Even the Mario series of Edutainment games wasn’t very successful at being fun.

So is there anything we can do to make learning while playing fun? What do you think? Also, what were your favorite Edutainment games growing up and what do you think made them fun?