Everything Bad is Situationally Fixed?
I guess one of the main questions I have about gaming is perhaps one of the same questions that many people have had about composition and rhetoric over the years: is there any transference of knowledge and/or skill strategies to other situations outside of the ones that happen when a learner is in the context of the game/course.
Supposedly, if, as Richard Larson and Mike Rose (I believe) have argued, rhetoric is an enabling discipline, then it can empower students with strategies and techniques that they can use in other places. We teach in ways that get students to develop methods that will help them in other courses, their future professions, etc. What some have questioned about freshman writing courses, though, is whether or not we really do enable students in any real way. The argument for abolishing freshman comp tends to question whether anything that students learn in such a course can transfer over into other places. I guess my main concern about Gee's argument, and others like Steven Johnson, is whether or not the skills learned in gaming scenarios help those who play them interact and participate in other environments.
I'm probably not the best person to answer this question, because I've never been a fan of complex narratives and complex problem solving in video games, anyway. I prefer interfaces where I drive a car really fast and perhaps crash into something along the way. I also don't play video games with others, because I tend not to like the complexities of dealing with annoying people. Perhaps this is an outward directed question to other people in the course: when you play interactive, complex games, do you feel as though skills you learn in those games transfer into other realms, or are they situationally fixed?
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To Transfer or not to Transfer
Well, I guess my first question could be: why do they need to? Meaning I don't think anybody would ask someone good at basketball if those skills transfered elsewhere. I don't think someone would ask a guitar player if those skills had other abilicability. In other words, the question is in some ways indicative of the (i find) strange negative social stigma that still surrounds gaming. Gee mentions this: feeling the need to address a whole chapter to the question of are video games a waste of time? Related: I'm always frustrated when someone looks at the huge popularity of a game like Guitar Hero and laments that these people (kids especially) should be learning to really play a real guitar. Or some people don't go that far, but do perform research if there is crossover of skills from playing GH to playing an "actual" guitar. I think that research is indeed interesting, but at the same time, it's further evidence of the strange notion that enjoying Guitar Hero for what it is can't be enough.
So with that question out of the way, I reckon I do feel there is transfer over for me. I know you're a fan of Johnson's book "Everything Bad is Good For You," and I feel he really nails it in his video game chapter. The whole "hand-eye coordination" benefit that constantly gets paraded around is about the least interesting one. Video games are problem solving and problem solving skills. Johnson's greatest point (for me) is that non-players don't realize how much time gamers spend in a state of frustration while playing. I'm playing Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on the Wii right now, and it's not uncommon for me to spend an hour or more frustrated trying to figure out where to go next and what to do in the game's frustrating dungeons. But I'm having fun while doing it! Does the ability to tolerate frustration, work through it, try different approaches, and ultimately reap the rewards benefit me in other realms of life? Well, you're an academic; I bet you can guess my answer.
How else? Hmmmmm. From a design perspective I feel that a lifetime of video game playing certainly influences the kind of graphical style I like to employ in some of my work. I'm a big fan of making machinima, and since I've never been a big film fan by whole life, I'm sure my sense for visual narrative presentation has been informed by video games and comic books more than anything else. I mean, I could probably go on and on into examples that some might even find ludicrous. But if you've played a lot of RPGs in your life, then you're well accustomed to accumlating, sorting, and organizing large amounts of inventory. Often you have to sell, buy, trade, and make long term planning to get an item you want. Has this effected the way I keep books and finances in my "real" life? Who knows? But who am I to say it hasn't.
Another interesting answer to this will come up when we get to the course reading on Bogost's "Procedural Rhetoric." In a nutshell-- the idea that one can be more persuasive making someone do, perform, or go through the acts of something, than simply writing a persuasive argument about the topic in words. My fave example is a video game called "JFK Reloaded." The game puts you in the POV perspective of Oswald from the school depository window. The game has an incredibly realistic physics engine in the sense of how the gun operates, how the distance works, and how the moving limo and police protection all affect the shot. The point of the game is simple. Pull of Oswald's "supposed" shot. I never have. And I've been playing games since I was six. Is this persuasive that maybe Oswald wasn't the shooter? Maybe, maybe not. But asking me to try and take that shot under virtually created conditions that approximiate the real world as close as possible? Let's say that's far more convincing than any essay I've ever read.
So in a nutshell (thanks Ehren, I think this reply might have just reached a length where it becomes my response for the week!), yes, I feel gaming does transfer and is far from situationally fixed. But I still wonder what would be so wrong if it was situationally fixed? Or I could go the other extreme and ask: is anything ever really situationally fixed? Yes, in the sense (like Gee suggests) all language and symbols get their meaning from being situated. But they're never "fixed." They always cross over to new semiotic domains and take on new meanings. I reckon actions, movements, play, etc, act in exactly the same way.