Gaming the Past– Commercial Video Games with historical contexts: Evaluation of the Iranian Lotf Ali Khan Game

Main Article Content

Mahdi Gheitasi
Joan Arnedo Moreno
Sorin Hermon
Marc Aurel Schnabel

Abstract

Virtual environments have numerous potentials for assisting the general public in experiencing cultural heritage, complementing current tools and practices centered on tangible goods such as museums, exhibitions, books, and visual content. Video games designed for educational purposes, which are becoming increasingly popular, have emerged as a new method of learning cultural content engagingly. The learning experience's specific goal distinguishes the educational use of video games. There is little doubt that we can learn from video games, but the more difficult questions about who, what, where, why, and how quickly we learn are not easily answered. This study examines the role of commercial video games in history learning and aims to enhance their effectiveness by analyzing their potential and limitations, using strategic planning and network analysis models. Through a case study on the Lotf Ali Khan game, it identifies strategies for improving history education through commercial video games. In this case study, it can be utilized to establish a conceptual framework for current trends in deployments of the past in historically focused video games, as well as a SWOT-ANP analysis to determine the major ways in which historical video games can aid in learning the subject matter under assessment. The data for this case study includes secondary sources and documents, fieldwork, observations, and semi-structured interviews with fifteen participants, as with other case studies (experts and children). Following the results, successful implementation occurs when a video game fully utilizes the following opportunities: antiquarian, monumental, and critical elements; wish story; composite imagination; borrowed authenticity; historical provenance; and legitimacy

Dimensions

Plum Analytics

Article Details

Section
Articles
Author Biographies

Joan Arnedo Moreno, GAME research group Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

 

 

Sorin Hermon, STARC The Cyprus Institute

 

 

Marc Aurel Schnabel, Forum8

 

 

References

J. Van Drie and C. Van Boxtel, “Historical reasoning: Towards a framework for analyzing students’ reasoning about the past,” Educ. Psychol. Rev., vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 87–110, 2008, doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-007-9056-1.

K. M. YOUNG and G. LEINHARDT, “Writing from Primary Documents,” Writ. Commun., vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 25–68, Jan. 1998, doi: 10.1177/0741088398015001002.

C. A. Perfetti, M. A. Britt, and M. C. Georgi, Text-based learning and reasoning: Studies in history. Routledge, 2012.

K. O’Reilly, “Informal reasoning in high school history,” Routledge, 2012. doi: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203052228.

E. Masterman and Y. Rogers, “A framework for designing interactive multimedia to scaffold young children’s understanding of historical chronology,” Instr. Sci., vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 221–241, 2002, doi: 10.1023/A:1015133106888.

E. Wood, Teaching early years history. Chris Kington, 1996.

T. M. Weis, R. Benmayor, C. O’Leary, and B. Eynon, “Digital technologies and pedagogies,” Soc. Justice, vol. 29, no. 4 (90, pp. 153–167, 2002, [Online]. Available: https://www.jstor.org/stable/29768155

S. D. Piovesan, L. M. Passerino, and A. S. Pereira, “Virtual Reality as a Tool in the Education.,” Int. Assoc. Dev. Inf. Soc., pp. 295–298, 2012, [Online]. Available: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED542830

J. P. Gee, Why video games are good for your soul: Pleasure and learning. Common Ground, 2005. [Online]. Available: https://books.google.fi/books/about/Why_Video_Games_are_Good_for_Your_Soul.html?id=nG2uugIdH3wC&redir_esc=y

T. Cowen, “Why everything has changed: the recent revolution in cultural economics,” J. Cult. Econ., vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 261–273, Dec. 2008, doi: 10.1007/s10824-008-9074-y.

K. J. Borowiecki and J. Prieto-Rodriguez, “Video games playing: A substitute for cultural consumptions?,” J. Cult. Econ., vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 239–258, Aug. 2015, doi: 10.1007/s10824-014-9229-y.

[Anonymous, 2016]

J. McCall, “Playing with the past: History and video games (and why it might matter),” J. Geek Stud., vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 29–48, 2019, [Online]. Available: https://www.academia.edu/39273348/Playing_with_the_past_history_and_video_games_and_why_it_might_matter_

J. Shieber, “Video game revenue tops $43 billion in 2018, an 18% jump from 2017,” Techcrunch.com, 2019. https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/22/video-game-revenue-tops-43-billion-in-2018-an-18-jump-from-2017/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALUBDBHRi_xfGcjunFL5hIFmP4x1MZpcfxWeNf-ayArW9jzVBIl5kRVsgRM0q7QALcE2J4qmIa2RNHKl6CA-A-tTEkO4Gb8H1-QF9OFJI8ZvA0Ls0EQgYY4IEWThU2gIXlxBZnDNzXx4at5XrtIIMf3F9NurRt9WEcL5FTi6ZMu4

S. Egenfeldt-Nielsen, “What Makes a Good Learning Game?,” eLearn, vol. 2011, no. 2, p. 1943208.1943210, Feb. 2011, doi: 10.1145/1943208.1943210.

M. Prensky and S. Thiagarajan, Digital Game-Based Learning, Paragon House, St, vol. 17. Paragon House, 2007. [Online]. Available: https://www.paragonhouse.com/xcart/Digital-Game-Based-Learning.html

E. MacCallum-Stewart and J. Parsler, “Controversies: Historicising the Computer Game,” Proc. DIGRA Conf., pp. 203–210, 2007.

J. Majewski, “Cultural heritage in role-playing video games: A map of approaches,” Furnace, vol. 2, pp. 24–36, 2015, [Online]. Available: https://www.academia.edu/37594294/Playing_with_intangible_heritage_Video_game_technology_and_procedural_re_enactment

K. Salen, K. S. Tekinbaş, and E. Zimmerman, Rules of play: Game design fundamentals. MIT press, 2004. [Online]. Available: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262240451/rules-of-play/

A. Chapman, Digital games as history: How videogames represent the past and offer access to historical practice. Routledge, 2016. [Online]. Available: https://www.perlego.com/book/1632313/digital-games-as-history-how-videogames-represent-the-past-and-offer-access-to-historical-practice-pdf?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&campaignid=17490270403&adgroupid=140283313320&gclid=CjwKCAjw8-OhBhB5EiwADyoY1YNbb8agw-0ykwrLeNBg46ZPATK17yjcHykJp0codKDL8ry5bPGyOBoCe_YQAvD_BwE

A. Reinhard, Archaeogaming: An introduction to archaeology in and of video games. Berghahn Books, 2018. doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781785338748.

A. D. Reinhard, “Archaeology of Digital Environments: Tools, Methods, and Approaches,” University of York, 2019. doi: 10.5284/1056111.

J. McCall, “Teaching History With Digital Historical Games,” Simul. Gaming, vol. 47, no. 4, pp. 517–542, Aug. 2016, doi: 10.1177/1046878116646693.

K. O’Neill and B. Feenstra, “Honestly, I Would Stick with the Books’: Young Adults’ Ideas about a Videogame as a Source of Historical Knowledge,” Game Stud., vol. 16, no. 2, 2016, [Online]. Available: https://gamestudies.org/1602/articles/oneilfeenstra

T. J. Copplestone, “But that’s not accurate: the differing perceptions of accuracy in cultural-heritage videogames between creators, consumers and critics,” Rethink. Hist., vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 415–438, Jul. 2017, doi: 10.1080/13642529.2017.1256615.

E. L. Hammar, “Counter-hegemonic commemorative play: marginalized pasts and the politics of memory in the digital game Assassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry,” Rethink. Hist., vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 372–395, Jul. 2017, doi: 10.1080/13642529.2016.1256622.

A. Shaw, “The Tyranny of Realism: Historical accuracy and politics of representation in Assassin’s Creed III,” Loading..., vol. 9, no. 14, 2015, [Online]. Available: http://loading.gamestudies.ca

S. Murray, “The poetics of form and the politics of identity in Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation,” Kinephanos J. Media Stud. Pop. Cult., pp. 77–102, 2017, [Online]. Available: https://www.kinephanos.ca/2017/the-poetics-of-form/

J. Wills, “Pixel Cowboys and Silicon Gold Mines: Videogames of the American West,” Pac. Hist. Rev., vol. 77, no. 2, pp. 273–303, May 2008, doi: 10.1525/phr.2008.77.2.273.

H. Pötzsch and V. Šisler, “Playing Cultural Memory: Framing History in Call of Duty: Black Ops and Czechoslovakia 38-89: Assassination,” Games Cult., vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 3–25, 2019, doi: DOI: 10.1177/1555412016638603.

D. Ramsay, “Brutal games:" Call of duty" and the cultural narrative of world war II,” Cine. J., pp. 94–113, 2015, [Online]. Available: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43653093

A. Chapman and J. Linderoth, “Exploring the limits of play: A case study of representations of Nazism in games,” in The Dark Side of Game Play, Routledge, 2015, pp. 137–153. [Online]. Available: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315738680-9/exploring-limits-play-adam-chapman-jonas-linderoth

C. A. Kocurek, Coin-operated Americans: Rebooting boyhood at the video game arcade. U of Minnesota Press, 2015. [Online]. Available: https://books.google.fi/books?hl=en&lr=&id=gTB0DwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT5&dq=C.+A.+Kocurek,+Coin-operated+Americans:+Rebooting+boyhood+at+the+video+game+arcade.+U+of+Minnesota+Press,+2015.&ots=obT7nO6bU8&sig=fUeTTS1eUN5OqNay4mJMntbyF-0&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=C. A. Kocurek%2C Coin-operated Americans%3A Rebooting boyhood at the video game arcade. U of Minnesota Press%2C 2015.&f=false

[Anonymous, 2016]

A. Chevtchenko, “Gamified Education,” Introd. Game Elem. into Sch. Environ. to Enhanc. Student Motiv. Performance. Erasmus Univ. Rotterdamn, 2013.

S. A. Metzger and R. J. Paxton, “Gaming History: A Framework for What Video Games Teach About the Past,” Theory Res. Soc. Educ., vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 532–564, Oct. 2016, doi: 10.1080/00933104.2016.1208596.

D. Wilcox-Netepczuk, “Immersion and realism in video games-the confused moniker of video game engrossment,” in Proceedings of CGAMES’2013 USA, 2013, pp. 92–95. doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/CGames.2013.6632613.

C. Jennett et al., “Measuring and defining the experience of immersion in games,” Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud., vol. 66, no. 9, pp. 641–661, Sep. 2008, doi: 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2008.04.004.

A. Chapman and J. McCall, “Affording History : Civilization and the Ecological Approach,” in Playing with the Past : Digital games and the simulation of history, Bloomsbury Academic, 2017, pp. 29–48. doi: 10.5040/9781628928259.ch-004.

D. Spring, “Gaming history: computer and video games as historical scholarship,” Rethink. Hist., vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 207–221, Apr. 2015, doi: 10.1080/13642529.2014.973714.

T. Apperley, “Modding the Historians’ Code : Historical Verisimilitude and the Counterfactual Imagination,” in Playing with the Past : Digital games and the simulation of history, Bloomsbury Academic, 2014, pp. 185–198. doi: 10.5040/9781628928259.ch-012.

J. Westin and R. Hedlund, “Polychronia–negotiating the popular representation of a common past in Assassin’s Creed,” J. Gaming Virtual Worlds, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 3–20, 2016, doi: https://doi.org/10.1386/jgvw.8.1.3_1.

K. Schut, “Strategic Simulations and Our Past,” Games Cult., vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 213–235, Jul. 2007, doi: 10.1177/1555412007306202.

R. K. Yin, Case study research: Design and methods, vol. 5. SAGE Publications Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA, 2009. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/cjpe.30.1.108.

T. L. Saaty and L. G. Vargas, “The analytic network process,” in Decision making with the analytic network process, Springer, 2013, pp. 1–40. doi: DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-7279-7_1.

N. Kadoić, “Characteristics of the Analytic Network Process, a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Method,” Croat. Oper. Res. Rev., vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 235–244, Dec. 2018, doi: 10.17535/crorr.2018.0018.