At one of the many memorable lectures I attended last year at USC, Alan Gershenfeld, CEO of E-Line Media, made a statement so bold that it stuck with me ever since.
“The best games create a deep desire to learn.”
I ponder the validity of this claim with each new game I play, but I have yet to find an exception to this previously untold rule. Two questions immediately came to mind upon hearing the statement: what exactly is this deep desire, and why is it essential to interactive media? When I took CTIN-309 last Fall, the class had a discussion on the merits of education in a medium known primarily for its purposes in entertainment. I told the class of my experience playing God of War, and how it inspired me to learn more about Greek mythology. I was hardly the only student with an experience of this kind. Curiously, none of the games mentioned were designed for the sole purpose of education, but inspired further research nonetheless.
For the remainder of this post, I will put Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption on the pedestal. No other game released this summer (and possibly this year) exemplifies Gershenfeld’s claim quite like Rockstar’s grand tale of the Old West.
Historical authenticity was a priority for Rockstar during the game’s development, and it shows in nearly every aspect of Red Dead Redemption’s design. The game takes place in 1911 as America is deep in industrial revolution and World War I looms on the horizon. Wandering around town, the player often overhears the residents engaged in conversation. Some are concerned with the government’s ever increasing influence, while others spread rumors about the formation of a federal crime-fighting agency. These aspects of the game can be overlooked if the player is in a hurry, but they are a welcome reward for anyone patient enough to explore and listen. They subtly hint at the masses’ mentality at the time, while enhancing the notion of historical accuracy. The world is yours to explore at your leisure, an affordance not granted by traditional media. Whether it be a play, a novel, or a film, the audience is always guided along a predetermined path to the conclusion. While Red Dead Redemption’s narrative is unquestionably linear, it allows the player access to its setting along the way.
Rockstar Vice President Dan Houser told The New York Times that in regards to video games, “…the one thing they do unquestionably better than other mediums is represent geography.” After riding from The Great Plains to Mexico and back, I am inclined to believe that I have a feel for what life in the Old West might have looked like on the surface. This “feel” is the best answer I have come up with for how the deep desire to learn is formed. Red Dead Redemption is not entirely authentic but it certainly feels as such. New Austin is not a real US territory, nor is Abraham Reyes a real revolutionist. However, both examples show Rockstar’s ability to use fiction as a means of providing truth. I fought alongside Reyes during the Mexican Revolution and I was affected by his rhetoric, just as I was affected by the rhetoric of his enemies. None of these characters existed in history, yet their ideals were far from fictitious. When I left Mexico at the end of the second act, I had a feel for the emotions and ideas that drove Mexico to revolution. The details, however, remained unclear, so I took it upon myself to research the revolution. Red Dead Redemption’s depiction of the Mexican Revolution did what no other medium can do: allow me to experience a representation of the event for myself. This occurrence is undoubtedly one of interactive media’s most essential abilities.
Red Dead Redemption is in many ways a period piece, and thus it lends itself rather well to Gershenfeld’s claim. However, great games that lack a formal narrative arc can still provide the claim with justification. I am currently playing Super Mario Galaxy 2, and while the desire to learn is not nearly as obvious, I still believe it to be present. After all, few other games require the player to experiment with gravity in such a creative manner. With all that said, I feel I am ready to make a claim of my own. Educational merit in video games comes as a result of allowing the player to feel and experience the emotions and ideas one wishes to communicate. The finer details of these ideas and emotions are better left to the textbooks. Video games will most likely always be inferior to passive media as a means of providing core information, but as a means of providing a relevant platform for the audience to engage with this information, they remain unparalleled.
Further reading: The True West: The History That Helped Inspire Red Dead Redemption
That makes sense, the way the geography was laid out. The rolling thunder clouds and red mesas. Maybe not so much the rocket cougars, though.
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