Games allow you to practice manipulating and understanding the properties of complex systems, through many repetitions, in varying configurations.
You can form theories and test them. Eventually you build detailed models of these complex state spaces.
The Witness demonstrates that you can come to an understanding of how something works without being able to verbalize it.
“We’re able to get something into people’s minds that didn’t come from the pictures; it didn’t come from the sound effects; it didn’t come from the controls. It’s a different thing.”
Games make possible competence without knowing specific facts
parallels to the “inverted explanation” notion in TTFT
games mostly aren’t good at conveying specific facts
jblow’s key thesis about why edu games fail is that they aren’t taking seriously the differences in the media: they’re just trying to do a book-like thing in the context of games. The space of what games can convey effectively is different from that of books.
I think this is right, but for slightly different reasons: I think the key issue isn’t e.g. trying to teach specific information but rather disregarding the intrinsically motivating goal being optimized, which for games is an aesthetic experience.
People look for outcomes in terms of people understanding specific facts, but what games like Shenzhen I/O can do is to convey the “deep spirit of being an engineer.”
He cuts the knot in this way: games are fun because people have a deep intrinsic drive to learn and get better at things; games find a way to hook into that.
Games can motivate iteration and deeper engagement through goals—ideally authentic goals.
e.g. in Shenzhen, you can solve a puzzle but realize that your solution is ugly, and a leaderboard can perhaps communicate that there’s a more efficient way.
Gamification raises people who are motivated by the rewards rather than by the science.