Wow.
Simply wow.
Reading the article, I paid special attention to the forum posts by his students. Specifically;
That reads like a modern day gamer, for sure. My father's little 13 year old step son would fall directly into that category, as I did the exact same thing with him, and this was almost word for word his beef with it. I installed Fallout on his computer, but warned him that he couldn't compare it to, say, Fable, which he was reall in to at the time. He waved his hand like a know-it-all 13 year old boy, and said he'd be fine. I said alright, and went home. Not an hour later he calls my cell begging me to come back and explain what to do. He said the game was boring him to tears, that he couldn't figure out why the rats kept kicking his ass, and that he had no idea what to do once he finally DID get out of the cave.
See, this is another gripe I had with my dad's stepson. Gamers these days aren't like how it used to be. It's like everything these days, people want shit spoonfed to them, they want it to make sense, want it to be easy. Let's talk for example, about sandbox games. Grand Theft Auto, Oblivion, Fallout 3, to name a few. You think, wow, sandbox, that's huge open space, I can go anywhere, do anything. Now what do I do though? I want to know my objective, where is it? Oh, but that's what the little compass is for, right? It tells you exactly where to go, so you don't miss it. There's no sense of exploration, of discovery, there's just go here, talk to this person, they tell you to go there, you follow the arrow, it gets you to where you are going, and presto, glowing object of interest acquired!
I was impressed by the further posts, however, when they started getting into it, but most kids these days will give up and never touch it again. I'd wager to say if he hadn't forced them to stay focused, many would never have touched it again, because the graphics are not pretty, or the game is not an easy button-masher.
But what I was most impressed about was the conversation he had with his students at the end;
Maybe, if there were teachers and people out there like this guy, gaming would be good again. Maybe.
Simply wow.
Reading the article, I paid special attention to the forum posts by his students. Specifically;
That reads like a modern day gamer, for sure. My father's little 13 year old step son would fall directly into that category, as I did the exact same thing with him, and this was almost word for word his beef with it. I installed Fallout on his computer, but warned him that he couldn't compare it to, say, Fable, which he was reall in to at the time. He waved his hand like a know-it-all 13 year old boy, and said he'd be fine. I said alright, and went home. Not an hour later he calls my cell begging me to come back and explain what to do. He said the game was boring him to tears, that he couldn't figure out why the rats kept kicking his ass, and that he had no idea what to do once he finally DID get out of the cave.
See, this is another gripe I had with my dad's stepson. Gamers these days aren't like how it used to be. It's like everything these days, people want shit spoonfed to them, they want it to make sense, want it to be easy. Let's talk for example, about sandbox games. Grand Theft Auto, Oblivion, Fallout 3, to name a few. You think, wow, sandbox, that's huge open space, I can go anywhere, do anything. Now what do I do though? I want to know my objective, where is it? Oh, but that's what the little compass is for, right? It tells you exactly where to go, so you don't miss it. There's no sense of exploration, of discovery, there's just go here, talk to this person, they tell you to go there, you follow the arrow, it gets you to where you are going, and presto, glowing object of interest acquired!
I was impressed by the further posts, however, when they started getting into it, but most kids these days will give up and never touch it again. I'd wager to say if he hadn't forced them to stay focused, many would never have touched it again, because the graphics are not pretty, or the game is not an easy button-masher.
But what I was most impressed about was the conversation he had with his students at the end;
Maybe, if there were teachers and people out there like this guy, gaming would be good again. Maybe.