Преглед НЦД 4 (2004), 84–98
Kalina Sotirova
(Institute of Mathematics and Informatics,
Bualgarian Academy of Science)
EDUTAINMENT GAMES – HOMO CULTURALIS VS HOMO LUDENS
Abstract. Cultural heritage has to be preserved for the future generations. This often repeated need seems obvious for every educated and self-respected citizen of our unifying world. But we are not born as “man of culture (civilization)”. We are Homo Culturalis “in becoming”, which means “in constant educational process”. One of the most actual questions, staying in front of the educational institutions and cultural heritage holders in digital age, is how more efficiently the historical heritage of human thought and actions to be made known for widest audience possible. The accent is put on searching new tools for this, tools, which have to provide not only content, but joy. Attractiveness is of importance especially for young generation, whose literacy level is decreasing progressively.
Edutainment games (combination between education and entertainment), which have been becoming popular in Europe, could be good tool for such a goal. These games were born in big competition with most popular recently “fun and cruel” games. They combine two functions: entertainment and education, from which the definition of ‘edutainment games’ is obtained. Through this good combination Information Technology strikes the mass culture of illiteration and serves for popularization of collections of libraries, archives and museums. Edutainment games are 'the fruit' of scientific and industrial search for bigger patterns of understanding, so that one can 'see' and use all the benefits games are proposing to Homo Sapiens-Ludens.
Ludology (from "ludus", the Latin word for "game") is a new discipline that studies games in general and computer games in particular. But the truth is that a 'unified theory of game play' does not exist yet. The existing historical, psychological, and anthropological studies on games and even mathematical “game theory” are limited because of their narrow focus on specific parts of the puzzle we call “game”. To some extent ludology could be thought as a synonym of “game studies”, but it necessarily has interdisciplinary character.
Appearance of ludology in educational, industrial and research areas showed the important fact that digital culture is not a strange phenomenon already. It became part of curricula on different university subjects: Computer Science, History and Theory of Culture, Psychology, Library science, Multimedia, Artificial Intelligence and even Management and Marketing. Ludology has been developing in three main axes: curriculum, theory and research and application. Since the first two have to be covered on University level, this paper puts the accent on the third one: research and practical application in the field of culture.
This paper will try to answer to the following questions:
(1) What are computer games (modus vivendi of XXI c. as Huizinga predicted)?
There are different definitions of what a (computer) game is, but here we use one that is fairly suitable for the scope of this article: “Form of computer art with built-in and quantitative definitions of success and failure, in which participants (players), put up with formal and predefined set of rules for the progression of a game session, make decisions in the pursuit of a clear and meaningful goal.”.
(2) Which type of games is preferred recently in the market?
Edutainment games are presented as an alternative to the brain-washing game types. Examples are given in the Appendix (Versailles I and II, Virtual Renaissance Court, etc.).
(3) How answers of (1) and (2) could be used in favour of contemporary attempts of preserving cultural heritage?
The difficult dialogue between industry and academia – let’s find a common language.
Final part of the paper presents brief Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) analysis and conclusion.
Key words: cultural heritage, digitization, computer game, game research, edutainment