Knowledge Games: How Playing Games Can Solve Problems, Create Insight, and Make Change

by Karen Schrier

Overview

Are games the knowledge-producers of the future?

Imagine if new knowledge and insights came not just from research centers, think tanks, and universities but also from games, of all things. Video games have been viewed as causing social problems, but what if they actually helped solve them? This question drives Karen Schrier’s Knowledge Games, which seeks to uncover the potentials and pitfalls of using games to make discoveries, solve real-world problems, and better understand our world. For example, so-called knowledge games—such as Foldit, a protein-folding puzzle game, SchoolLife, which crowdsources bullying interventions, and Reverse the Odds, in which mobile game players analyze breast cancer data—are already being used by researchers to gain scientific, psychological, and humanistic insights.

Schrier argues that knowledge games are potentially powerful because of their ability to motivate a crowd of problem solvers within a dynamic system while also tapping into the innovative data processing and computational abilities of games. In the near future, Schrier asserts, knowledge games may be created to understand and predict voting behavior, climate concerns, historical perspectives, online harassment, susceptibility to depression, or optimal advertising strategies, among other things.

In addition to investigating the intersection of games, problem solving, and crowdsourcing, Schrier examines what happens when knowledge emerges from games and game players rather than scientists, professionals, and researchers. This accessible book also critiques the limits and implications of games and considers how they may redefine what it means to produce knowledge, to play, to educate, and to be a citizen.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421419206
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	06/15/2016
Series:	Tech.edu: A Hopkins Series on Education and Technology
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Karen Schrier is an assistant professor of media arts, the director of the Play Innovation Lab, and the director of the Games and Emerging Media Program at Marist College. She is the editor of the Learning, Education, and Games series.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

Part I What are Knowledge Games?

1 Contribution 15

2 Design 32

Part II Why Knowledge Games?

3 Problem Solving 51

4 Motivation 74

5 Social Interaction 95

Part III Perspectives, Potentials, and Pitfalls

6 Amateurs 121

7 Participation 140

8 Data 163

9 Knowledge 180

Appendix A Categories and Examples 201

Appendix B Design Principles, Recommendations, Considerations, and Implications 212

Appendix C Guiding Questions 218

Notes 221

Index 263

What People are Saying About This

James Paul Gee

Amidst all the many recent books on games, Karen Schrier’s Knowledge Games is something really new and truly important. Knowledge games are games where everyday people, without degrees or credentials, contribute to science, make knowledge, and sometimes best the experts. It’s all part of the larger Maker Movement and the drive for collective intelligence.

Ian Bogost

This book cuts through the thick fog of hype that surrounds games as learning tools in universities, businesses, and foundations. In place of blinkered ludophilia, Schrier offers a useful new category for thinking about games as machines by whose means we can do the work that produces new knowledge.

Zoë B. Corwin

By examining the intersection of crowdsourcing and games, Schrier provides a novel perspective on the role of games in society. This innovative book will resonate with students and scholars interested in game studies, computer science, and education.

Zoë B. Corwin

"By examining the intersection of crowdsourcing and games, Schrier provides a novel perspective on the role of games in society. This innovative book will resonate with students and scholars interested in game studies, computer science, and education."

Drew Davidson

Karen Schrier is thorough and clear in thinking through the interlacing issues involved with knowledge games. This book provides an important and critical overview of their development and experience.

From the Publisher

By examining the intersection of crowdsourcing and games, Schrier provides a novel perspective on the role of games in society. This innovative book will resonate with students and scholars interested in game studies, computer science, and education.
—Zoë B. Corwin, University of Southern California, coeditor of Postsecondary Play: The Role of Games and Social Media in Higher Education

Amidst all the many recent books on games, Karen Schrier’s Knowledge Games is something really new and truly important. Knowledge games are games where everyday people, without degrees or credentials, contribute to science, make knowledge, and sometimes best the experts. It’s all part of the larger Maker Movement and the drive for collective intelligence.
—James Paul Gee, Arizona State University, author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy

This book cuts through the thick fog of hype that surrounds games as learning tools in universities, businesses, and foundations. In place of blinkered ludophilia, Schrier offers a useful new category for thinking about games as machines by whose means we can do the work that produces new knowledge.
—Ian Bogost, Georgia Institute of Technology, author of How to Talk about Videogames

Karen Schrier is thorough and clear in thinking through the interlacing issues involved with knowledge games. This book provides an important and critical overview of their development and experience.
—Drew Davidson, Carnegie Mellon University, editor of Beyond Fun: Serious Games and Media

Editorial Reviews

This book is accessible on many levels and creates opportunities for game players, game designers and game scholars to understand their own knowledge-building processes when working with games.
—Times Higher Education

. . . a substantial literature review of the vast – and rapidly growing – field of games that contribute to knowledge production.
—Reflective Teaching

. . . Knowledge Games serves as our entry point into a new conversation about the potential—and soon to be reality—of video games.
—elearn Magazine

. . . Schrier does a great job of clearing a space where we can chat about games’ potential for giving us new perspectives on old problems.
—NEW SCIENTIST

From the Publisher

This book is accessible on many levels and creates opportunities for game players, game designers and game scholars to understand their own knowledge-building processes when working with games.

Times Higher Education

. . . Schrier does a great job of clearing a space where we can chat about games’ potential for giving us new perspectives on old problems.

NEW SCIENTIST

. . . Knowledge Games serves as our entry point into a new conversation about the potential—and soon to be reality—of video games.

elearn Magazine

. . . a substantial literature review of the vast – and rapidly growing – field of games that contribute to knowledge production.

Reflective Teaching