EDT791

When I signed up for EDT791, Video Games, Literacy, and Learning, I was cautiously optimistic. I had heard James Gee speak about literacy in gaming at ASU before he became a professor, and he really caught my attention with his discussion of the language skills being used and gained in everything from World of Warcraft to Yu-Gi-Oh!, so I knew both he and this semester's professor, Betty Hayes, were serious about learning concepts present in games. In spite of this, I was still skeptical about the course's relevance to me.

To say that I have a passion for gaming would be correct, but it understates the fanaticism with which I follow the entire industry. Gaming, and video gaming in particular, is core to my identity. I start every day with the delicious combo of of Nutty Nuggets and the latest gaming news from the likes of 1Up and Giant Bomb, and I end each day with a cup of yogurt and commentary from places like Penny Arcade and Level Up. My day is peppered with visits to Gamers With Jobs to read and participate in the latest discussions and articles. I wasn't sure if that passion would be matched by educational researchers; and my biggest concern was that I strongly felt that a course like this could only be delivered successfully by someone who took gaming seriously as both a hobby and an industry in addition to studying it academically.

During the first session of the course, Dr. Hayes talked about having recently played Oblivion, World of Warcraft and other titles with such enthusiasm that this concern was quickly alleviated and I was able to focus on the basic hypothesis of the course: Vital to the success of popular games is that they effectively teach and motivate players within the game space. From understanding and communicating within semiotic domains, to sympathizing with identities through role-play, to navigating the complex social networks that surround particular games and gaming in general, successful games establish an environment in which effective learning becomes not only enjoyable, but essential.

But, so what? What does it mean and how does it matter? I believe that it means that educators, and at a larger level, society, are now challenged to adapt to an environment where students, parents, and citizens not only expect, but will soon demand compelling educational experiences. Learning materials, regardless of the media in which they are presented, need to acknowledge complex systems and the situated meanings in their presentation. Cultural models need to be recognized and analyzed. The rote memorization of facts, and the reliance on standardized testing need to be abandoned, as both concepts are crutches upon which we support incredibly outdated theories of learning and assessment. In fact, our basic ideas about what assessment is and how it should be used need to change fundamentally. It's time for some navel gazing.

For traditional educators and, particularly, the entire bureaucratic system built to "support" them, this much-needed introspective analysis and resulting evolution can be incredibly frightening and daunting. It essentially means that years of (very outdated) materials may need to be abandoned and, therefore, millions of dollars "thrown away" as a result. But, I believe strongly that past costs should not be a factor in any important decision, especially those regarding education. I'm not entirely optimistic that these sorts of sweeping changes will happen any time soon - and they probably shouldn't. But it's certainly time to get a bunch of smart people on the task of spending a lot of time figuring out how it all should work.

Through the past several months in EDT791, I've seen a room full of skeptics, including myself, come to really understand the sorts of valuable lessons to be gleaned from games. As educators, we now see places to using gaming where we didn't before. As gamers, we now see bits of learning sprinkled throughout out games. It's all become so much more than "educational gaming" - a phrase marred by connotations that evoke memories of amateur, low-budget video combined with multiple choice quizzes and presented by poorly animated characters. I'm excited to see where this emerging field goes - and I want desperately to be a part of it all. So, while class is now officially "over," you can be sure you'll continue hearing from me about learning and games.

In my mind, gaming has historically been social in nature. Chess, soccer, Chinese checkers, poker, basketball, hide-and-seek, horseshoes and Dungeons and Dragons all exist as activities that enable and facilitate social interaction. As games, they nearly cease to exist without the presence of others.

In their infancy, video games were similarly social. Computers and developers weren't far enough along in the establishment of artificial intelligence, to do much more than allow a few players to duke it out. Single player experiences were incredibly limited, so video games were inherently social out of necessity. Sure, there were plenty of single-player experiences to be had, but even those were successful because they became social. Due to their limited ability to present complex character interactions to the player, games like Space Invaders, Pac-Man and Galaga became more about skill, showmanship and competition. Arcades became incredibly popular as locations for gamers to gather, lining up quarters for who had "next" in Street Fighter II and setting up high-score tournaments for 1942. Electronic gaming was "classic" gaming in that it was still an inherently social activity.

Video games evolved in many ways over the following few decades, and as processors got more powerful and developers became more experienced, AI was used to alter how we fundamentally experienced electronic entertainment. While this evolution brought us Baldur's Gate, Grand Theft Auto III, Final Fantasy XII and countless other unforgettable single-player experiences, it also slowly, but very successfully, removed social interaction from a large segment of mainstream gaming culture. Social games did continue to exist and flourish (see Counter-Strike, Everquest, etc.), but we quickly had a significant number of completely non-social experiences. Nothing about my hundreds of hours (literally) spent leveling up my characters in Baldur's Gate was communicated to my friends unless I went out of my way to tell them. Unless I brought them over to my house, my friends had to take my word for it that I'd defeated a particular rare or epic monster in Final Fantasy XII. Instead of facilitating or demanding interaction with other gamers, many titles from the past decade could be played and fully enjoyed in complete isolation. I'm not sure that was the direction anyone really wanted it to go.

Things seem to be changing, though, as the market transitions hardware generations...

First, broadband has truly become ubiquitous enough that console manufacturers can assume everyone will have internet access. As a result, services like XBOX Live Arcade and Steam Community have recreated the physical arcade experience in a virtual space. With both services, players can quickly and easily chat with friends, setup and invite each other to games, check out the "leader boards" of games they play and more. Both services have even brought single player games into the social experience with achievements - points or "badges of honor" for individual games.

Second, party games have truly come into the mainstream. Wii Sports and Rock Band are the runaway successes in this realm. Both games are enjoyable as a solo player, but become unique, indescribable experiences as more players are added to the mix. The sense of accomplishment when four players, in cooperation, beat an incredibly difficult song in Rock Band, and the sheer joy and child-like fun of four player tennis in Wii Sports has yet to be matched.

Finally, World of Warcraft, while debatably "next-gen" and certainly not the first of its kind, has brought massively-social gaming into the mainstream. It did so in such a nearly-perfect way that, as a result, gamers now have high expectations and demands for future games of its kind.

As the "next-gen" gaming platforms rapidly become the "current-gen," I can't help but recognize that gaming culture is rapidly returning, in many ways, to its roots. I couldn't be happier.

A few months ago, I started trying to talk my dad into buying an XBOX 360. I worked on him for months, occasionally feeding him little tidbits of motivation by telling him about such treats as Gears of War or Forza Motorsport 2. These were games I was certain he would revel in, but the experiences were too familiar to him and, therefore, failed to inspire the desired action. Months of subtle attempts at manipulation went by, and then my wife and I had my family over for dinner. I got out Guitar Hero III, which my brother and I had been playing with for a few weeks, and started to play. Dad was almost immediately hooked. Mom was in love with it. A few days later, I got a call on my cell phone while I was at work, "I'm at GameStop. What games should I get with my 360?"

Along with Guitar Hero III (which he and my mom still play regularly and bring up frequently in conversation), he also picked up Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Last week we had a conversation about it that I found quite relevant to Gee's concept of the ability of games to make a player sympathetic to unfamiliar circumstances and points of view.

Our conversation started when I asked how he was enjoying it. I had seen him on my friends list playing it a few nights prior. He told me he had beaten it, was playing through a second time on a harder difficulty, and was having a great time. What he really wanted to talk about, though, was the experience of being placed into the situations the game presented.

The fictional story of the game involves a "near-future war between the United States, United Kingdom, and Russian Loyalists against Russian Ultranationalists and Middle Eastern rebels." He felt the game took a relatively neutral stance on the way the conflict is handled, and simply offers the experience to the player's own interpretation. As a result, he said that he felt the game had made him understand several important things about similar real-world situations.

As a soldier on the ground, he was able to understand that situations like the one presented in the game are incredibly complex. He learned how hard it can be to make decisions in the chaos of a ground battle. Telling the difference between enemy and ally was difficult. He found a new sympathy for the experience of a soldier entrenched in conflict. He described the combat as visceral, difficult and exhausting.

None of these concepts were new to him, as they wouldn't be for most people. We hear frequently of the horrors, chaos and complexities of war. Most of us don't, however, experience them first hand. Even when we watch them in a visceral format like film or television, we're still not an active participant in the experience, so our view is tainted by the third person perspective into which we're naturally forced. Games remove that barrier and allow us to be direct participant. No longer casual observers, we become the soldier fighting for his life.

My dad is by no means a pacifist, but I don't believe he frequently supports military action. That's why I found it so interesting when he said the game made him feel that there are times when an organized use of force is the only way to resolve a situation. He didn't say that with the excitement you might expect from someone who had just beat a game, though. His active participation in a realistic conflict informed his opinion. To him, it was a cold dose of reality.

I haven't yet played Call of Duty 4, so while I wait for my dad to finish up his time with it and hand it off to me, I've picked up Call of Duty 2. I'm only a couple hours into the game, but I wanted to relate one experience I've had already.

I'm currently playing as a member of the Soviet infantry, attempting to fight off the German assault on Stalingrad. While my comrades and I were pushing our way through city streets, I heard the distinct "tink-tink-tink" of a potato masher landing near me. I knew I needed to get away, but the rubble I was hiding behind was under a hail of enemy fire. I crouched down and tried to fall back as quickly as possible, but I was too slow, and wasn't far enough from the grenade when it went off. The force of the explosion knocked me to the ground and, ears ringing loudly, I found myself disoriented and crawling. I noticed a comrade crouched behind a nearby crumbling concrete wall, and the relatively few seconds it took to reach him felt like an eternity.

With a singular experience, I was both entertained and horrified. I use the term "entertained," though, because I have no better term for the experience. I'm not sure I can really say I've had the kind of smile-on-my-face, laughing-out-loud fun with COD2 that one typically associates with playing a game. I supposed "compelled" is really the best word for the emotion, but it, and all it's variations, are so drastically overused in gaming media that the it has truly lost its significance. It does, however, accurately describe the feeling.

So what is it that compels me to keep playing it? I believe there are things we do not because they entertain, but because they satisfy. It's easy to confuse the two emotions, yet we find ourselves compelled to do many different activities. Even though it isn't fun when I spend hours writing and debugging Drupal modules, I frequently find it difficult to stop. The act of creation and problem solving is satisfying in itself. Playing certain games has a similar effect. Retaking a train station in Stalingrad, while difficult, intense and not really very fun, is incredibly satisfying.

Note: Images taken from the corresponding Wikipedia articles.

Wow, I've really fallen behind in posting my entries for class. I've been working on several different pieces, though, and I'm just having a hard time finishing them up. So, you can expect a steady stream of posts over the next few days about Rock Band, Gamestar Mechanic and a semi-related piece on podcasting.

For what it's worth, I mostly blame my procrastination on a re-discovered love for World of Warcraft...

In the first meeting of EDT791 this semester, we were told that one of our assignments would be to play a game for at least fifty hours and write about it while we did so. In that moment, I heard a sweet, subconscious whisper, "... World... of... Warcraft." It was uttered in that same way I hear "...coffee," each morning, or "...popcorn," whenever I walk through the doors of a movie theater. I hadn't logged into WoW in nearly nine months, and it was pulling at me. Strongly. Within mere seconds, I was coating a dagger with poison, hiding myself in the shadows and preparing to dizzy a gibbering ghoul in the Western Plaguelands. I was hoisting my tiny gnome body aboard a gryphon, grasping its feathers tightly as I soared towards Wintersping. I was... hearing a strange voice. "For those of you who are gamers, it needs to be a game you've never played." I had nearly fallen off the wagon. The intervention had saved me.

Over the next few weeks, I tried to forget my moment of near-weakness. After giving Persona 3 a valiant effort, I moved on to Lost Odyssey. I busied myself with other distractions - playing Jeanne D'arc or Disgaea on my PSP whenever I needed a quick fix, or Titan Quest when I needed something more intense. Each experience was satisfying in its own right, and each helped block my ears to WoW's siren song. Yet, despite my best efforts, it kept making its way back to the forefront.

In our second meeting, a classmate announced that he had chosen WoW as his game for the course. He told us he hadn't played any sort of game for years, let alone an MMO. A few weeks in, he talked at length about his low-level, newbie journey through Azeroth and demoed the game for us on a projector. Revisiting the game through his virgin eyes brought a flood of nostalgia. I quickly became the annoying kid in class who talks more than the teacher.

"What professions did you choose?"
"The leper gnomes are to the west."
"Do you see those mechanical bird-looking things? I have one of those."

I can only guess that my lust for his experience was palpable. Realizing how foolish I must have been acting, I glanced over at our professor and saw that same hungry, longing look in her eyes. When our classmate was finished, she logged into her account without hesitation and showed us, with great pride, her level sixty-nine night elf druid.

I knew she had played WoW - she had mentioned it before in class - but in my mind, she had surely spent time in Azeroth as a means of researching and documenting the experience of learning in an MMO. But, she had suddenly transformed from an academic who certainly didn't appreciate the game for what it truly was to a fellow warrior in the war against the Burning Legion. We suddenly shared that bond of mutual experience I imagine formerly deployed soldiers feel. We had both witnessed the devastation of the plague that had overrun Lordaeron. We had both taken down the Scarlet Crusade. We could surely talk at length about the anarchy of Stranglethorn Vale or Gadgetzan.

Talking about WoW during class wasn't the only thing calling me back - pleading with me to rejoin Alliance ranks. Gabe and Tycho at Penny Arcade had been, for several months, writing what can only be described as literary prose about their reignited love for the game. The son of the owners of the Gold Bar, where I spend the majority of my mornings becoming caffeine-infused while I work, was gushing about his first run in Karazhan and his new-found love for working the economy through auction house. Cory "Demiurge" Banks on Gamers With Jobs reminded me why the hand of WoW irreplaceably scratches a social itch, and the GWJ guild on the Blackhand server was ready and waiting to accept me with open arms. Unable to fight it any longer, I gave in. Within a few days, I had re-subscribed, paid the fee to for a character transfer to join the ranks of the GWJ Alliance, and was sneaking around the Eastern Plaguelands as Doogiemac, a level fifty-five gnome rogue.

Going back to WoW has delivered in more ways than I could have expected. The last time I left the game, roughly nine months ago, I was at level fifty and questing through a desolate world. The Dark Portal had been opened to Outland, but was only available for players of the highest level... a long ten levels away. In that nine months, Blizzard has drastically decreased the time needed to get from level one to sixty by ramping up the experience gained from enemies and quests in the lower level zones. I have now quickly worked my way up to level fifty-six, and fifty-seven is just over the horizon. More importantly, I have joined the ranks of the GWJ Alliance, and my brother has come along with me. WoW's inherently fun and addictive gameplay and it's masterful design and storytelling are reason enough to be continually drawn back in, but the social ties and relationships that are so core to the experience make it a foregone conclusion - I will never stop playing this game.

I plan on doing a full post at some point about Rock Band, but I thought I'd just drop a quick line about the Boston track pack that was just released last week. I picked it up the day it came out and I'm thoroughly impressed. Granted, my love for the music, particularly Rock & Roll Band and Smokin', is most likely due to my unusual and unhealthy love of albums with sweet UFOs on the cover and rockers with awesome facial hair. The note tracking for guitar on hard difficulty is an absolute blast, and I'm excited to jump into the drum tracks, as they sound like they'll be fun as well.

Lost Odyssey is a traditional Japanese role-playing game (JRPG), similar in play mechanics and style to dozens of games that have preceded it, but its presentation and quality of execution are among the finest in the genre. As such, it makes a great case study for games of its style in the context of literacy and learning. While it features plenty of content that could be investigated in the context of a typical view of literacy (lots of text to read, complex dialog and storytelling, etc.), I believe that the most interesting insights lay in the player’s literacy of the game world, mechanics and ecosystem of experiences surrounding that literacy.

Kaim Argonar is Lost Odyssey’s immortal, amnesiac protagonist. The story begins in a typical JRPG fashion, with Kaim somehow having forgotten his past - a convenient crutch many games, not just JRPGs, use as a way to orient the player to the main character. Lost Odyssey is different from other games of this type, though, in that the main character cannot die and has, up to this point, lived nearly one thousand years. So, he should clearly have some memories. As I quickly found out, he does, and they all have situated meanings. As I have progressed through the game, Kaim frequently encounters something that causes him to remember a moment from his past as a dream. These memories are then presented through on-screen text and images. Gee states, in chapter four of What Video Games Have to Teach Us..., that “meanings in video games are always specific to specific situations.” While I believe many of these dream sequences are very well written and stand alone as interesting works, they also contain completely situational meanings. Kaim’s memory of a troublesome and, to some, annoying girl in a small village had a deeper meaning than it may have had, seeing as I had just briefly earlier learned that Kaim had lost a daughter some time ago. There are dozens of these memories presented throughout the game, each with its own contextual meaning.

The interface for the game is quite similar to that of other games of the JRPG genre, particularly during fights. Battles occur in a turn-based style and actions are selected via a menu in the bottom-left corner of the screen at the beginning of each round. I have played many JRPGs in the past, so I was easily able to understand the menu system and how to control battles. For example, a convention of JRPG battle system menus is to have additional menu items available by pressing left or right on the control stick from the “main” list of menu. Nothing in Lost Odyssey prompted me to do this, but I knew, intuitively, that it may be an option, so I tried pressing right and then left, on my own, to see if something would happen. Pressing left did, in fact, bring up a menu that allowed me to change my equipped accessories at the beginning of each round of the fight. Gee describes this as the intuitive or tacit knowledge principle, meaning that repeated experience with a type or genre of game is not only valued but frequently expected.

Lost Odyssey features a somewhat dynamic leveling system in that, as I progress through the game, enemies stay at a challenging level, regardless of how much time I have put into making my characters stronger. The game’s boss battles are particularly emblematic of this, in that they are always quite difficult and typically present not only a strategic challenge, but one that is almost like a puzzle in nature. I have found myself using what Gee calls “probing” during many of these situations. Several of the most challenging battles have forced me to fight and fail (probe), devise other potential strategies (hypothesize), test these strategies in the next round (re-probe), and analyze the results (rethink) - often doing this several times until I reach the right “formula” for success. In spite of this, the game has never felt unfair. I believe this is because the game is balanced such that I know I can win, as long as I figure out how.

One of the most fascinating ideas in chapter four of What Video Games Have to Teach Us... is that of affinity groups and appreciative systems. Gee describes an appreciative system as, “the set of goals, desires, feelings, and values in respect to the domain being engaged with,” that we use to determine the significance or acceptability of the result of an action. There are nearly an infinite amount of potential affinity groups that I may use to establish my appreciative system while playing a game, however, the key group I associate myself with for this game is the community of gamers on the Gamers With Jobs website. In a forum thread about the game dating back to before the game’s release date, dozens of gamers have discussed various its aspects. The thread has ranged from thoughts about screenshots and previews to complex discussions about the narrative and pacing. Ultimately, this thread, which I have participated in, led me to not only purchase the game, but also look at situations in the game differently. There are a few posts similar to the one below (I won’t even get into the language used here, as that’s not the type of “literacy” I’m discussing, but it clearly could be a topic of its own):

“Has anyone wiped out on a normal fight yet? Is the retry/checkpoint system equally kind when that happens?”

-- zeroKFE

“I've only wiped at certain story events, not necessarily bosses. They all had a checkpoint that started before the encounter. I haven't wiped against regular creatures. Then again, it's been so linear so far, I haven't had any reason to find myself outside of my depth.”

-- Certis

After reading this, I knew that many other players had experienced the boss battles to be challenging, so it’s “acceptable” for me to have found them to be tough. I also know, from this same discussion thread, that it’s important to have a variety of accessories and rings to equip on my characters, so that’s something to which I have to paid close attention.

Lost Odyssey makes use of many of the principles presented in the Situated Meaning and Learning chapter of What Video Games Have to Teach Us..., but I have found the most fascinating part of it is that I don’t even notice. Many times I have had to force myself to think about the game in the context of Gee’s work. This is a stark contrast to my experience with Persona 3, where I found myself constantly thinking about the game’s relationship to the course work - mainly, I now realize, because the game itself was so uninteresting and presented those aspects in such an obvious and intrusive manner. Lost Odyssey’s presentation (to a gamer with my background, mind you) of play mechanics and content is so refined that it typically melts away into the experience... which is precisely what we should be expecting of the finest educational materials.

"I'm much better. Yes, I'm going to make it and you will, too. Just do what you think is right."
- Paul Denton, Deus Ex

Spoiler warning: This article contains spoilers of key moments in Deus Ex, Baldur's Gate II, Jeanne d'Arc and BioShock.

In What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, Gee discusses situated meaning and learning in the context of Deus Ex, and he touches on some important aspects of narrative that I think are relevant to the discussion of identity. Earlier in the text, Gee describes Identity Principal, which he cites as being a key to effective learning. When learners identify with the role that the skills they are learning will apply to (i.e. identifying oneself as a scientist when dissecting a toad), the "learner has real choices... and ample opportunity to meditate on the relationship between new identities and old ones."

One of the most memorable events of Deus Ex, was the point when I, as JC Denton, was faced with the decision to save my brother Paul from death or escape with my life to continue my mission. In that moment, Paul, playing the brave and valiant brother-figure, pushed me to go on without him so that he could slow down the enemy, assisting my escape. Up to this point in the narrative, Ion Storm (the game's developer) have presented Paul in such a way that I genuinely cared about his fate and was distraught at having to make that decision. In that moment, I identified myself as JC, Paul's blood relative, and cared about his well-being. I saved the game right before the encounter that followed, and tried several times to save Paul from his valiant death.

Preventing Paul's demise was important to me on several levels. My identity as his brother wanted to save him because of our bond as family. My identity as a gamer wanted him to live so that I could feel the satisfaction of having done so. At the time, I had a friend who was also playing through the game, so my identity as a social gamer wanted to succeed in the challenge presented to me so that I could have the associated bragging rights, of a sort. Gee's experience was a bit different that mine, in that he was fairly new to gaming at the time and didn't feel like he "had the requisite game-playing skills to save him." I, on the other hand, had been playing games for as long as I could remember, and the situation I was presented with wasn't simply a matter of narrative and emotion, but one of pride. In spite of all this motivation, I couldn't succeed. I must have spent several hours attempting to save him, but I eventually had to give up. The part of me that identified myself as JC genuinely felt that, in spite of my best efforts, I couldn't save my brother from death. This experience was incredibly powerful and has stuck with me since I first played the game, eight years ago.

"I could dance on the head of a pin, as well."
- Yoshimo, Baldur's Gate II

Several games have mustered weak attempts at conveying the raw emotions of anger, frustration and disappointment that come with an act of betrayal. Most recent in my memory is Roger's (unwilling) betrayal of his comrades in Jeanne d'Arc - an event in which I felt... something, but only because he was one of my strongest characters and he leaves the party as a result. I happen to remember this moment simply because I've recently played the game. Other attempts were so unfortunate and forgettable that I can't think of them now... except for Yoshimo's betrayal in Baldur's Gate II. While Bioware's Baldur's Gate series, as a whole, is arguably the pinnacle of a PC role-playing game "golden age," this singular moment stands out as one of the most defining gaming events I've had the fortune to experience.

Upon entering Spellhold, it is revealed that Yoshimo is working for the uber-villain Irenicus. It's further explained that he is doing so against his will, under a geas. Yet, I was forced to fight him to death. He asks that, when he dies, I take his heart to a temple so that his soul may be cleansed and rest in peace. Until this point, Yoshimo had helped me escape imprisonment, bantered with me and my friends on our journeys, and become a friend and trusted ally. I'm certain I was naive at the time, and wasn't able to see hints of his eventual treachery, but it only made that pivotal moment carry more weight. Within the span of a relatively brief few moments, I had experienced a rush of emotions: betrayal and anger at Yoshimo's treachery, pity and compassion at his frustrated explanation of his uncontrollable actions, and sorrow over his death... at my hands.

My experience with Irrational's BioShock featured an equally memorable moment of betrayal. From the opening moments the game, the character Atlas played the role of both guide and friend as I made my way through the ruined city of Rapture. Eventually, it was revealed that Atlas is actually mobster Frank Fontaine, and had been using me as a simple tool to kill Andrew Ryan. I had been brain-washed to obey orders using the trigger phrase, "Would you kindly..." and had been manipulated throughout my journey. The key difference between Fontaine's act of betrayal and Yoshimo's, though, is that there is no redemption for Fontaine. In fact, his treachery puts me in the position of Yoshimo: an unwilling traitor. While both characters were aware that their actions were treacherous, Yoshimo had acted against his will.

What's so important about each of these experiences is that they are mine. I experienced these powerful emotions, not as a third-party observer, but as the focus and target of the actions of others. In It's All About Me, Julian Murdoch says, "It's... because games are about me that I care so much about them." As a casual, external observer of Paul Denton's death or Yoshimo's betrayal, my interest would have been that of the historically-minded archeologist. Instead, I experienced the death of my brother. I had to deal with the treachery of a close friend. I was manipulated and used by the only person I thought I could trust.

These moments are critical to the understanding of why games can be such effective teaching tools. If I can so easily take on the identity of Deus Ex's JC Denton, or BioShock's Jack, I see no reason I couldn't assume the identity of civil engineer, barista, congressman, surgeon or artist with little additional effort and, in doing so, more effectively experience and learn each profession's associated skills.

Ten hours in to Persona 3, I felt like I had picked a truly special game to study for this class. Atlus had melded a dating / relationship simulator, a genre I thought I'd venture in to, and a role-playing game into what felt like a fresh, new experience. Up to that point, the game's story and premise was, well... weird, but I like challenging narrative in my entertainment. So, a tale of quirky J-pop teenagers mixing night-time demon hunting with day-time high school romance wasn't so much a problem as a challenge. The mechanics of actually playing the game were quite strong. The battle system was rock solid, quick and deep, and the relationship simulator's integration with character's abilities was a fun and interesting take on genre conventions. At the ten hour mark, I felt I had played enough to get into all the fine details of the gameplay: managing relationships, equipping my characters, traveling to Tartarus at night to battle demons, and gathering and raising Personas to help me in battle. I could see only one potential, but major, flaw in the game: level design.

Tartarus is essentially the inverse of an enormous dungeon. It contains what seem to be dozens, maybe hundreds, of floors that change each time you enter. The designers attempt to explain this away in the context of the story, but it essentially means that each floor you enter is randomly generated. As I worked my way through the first several floors of gray-walled corridors, occasionally fighting monsters or picking up treasure, I figured that once I reached the foretold 20th-floor boss, I would be on to more interesting environs. After spending several days in game-time (many hours of my real-life time) entering the dungeon, battling until my characters were too weak to continue, then coming back the next night, I finally gained enough strength to beat the boss and moved on up to... slightly creepier, randomly generated, gray corridors.

Luckily, up until this point, the game had held my attention with the excellently designed battle system. Running through Tartarus wasn't exactly interesting, but fighting the monsters and leveling up my characters was fun enough to keep me going. However, after that 20th floor boss, each night that I entered Tartarus felt more and more like work. I kept at it, though, setting my eyes on the next prize: the 40th floor. But, you guessed it - nothing changed after that, either. In fact, the artwork used to render the corridors was exactly the same. It hadn't changed at all by the 50th floor, either - which was at about twenty-eight hours of my play time.

The complete lack of progression and reward for your journey through Tartarus is echoed in the rest of the game's design. I worked my way through entire relationship chains, but nothing interesting ever happened. My friend who had a crush on a teacher didn't end up running away with her. She had a boyfriend and, for some strange reason, didn't dig on teenage boys. Shocking. Essentially, the entire game revolves around visiting the exact same locations (school, the dorms or town shops, and Tartarus), while doing the exact same things (relationship building and battling in grey corridors).

I really wanted to like Persona 3. Atlus did so much right with it, and took a pretty big risk by essentially throwing a dating sim into a hardcore RPG. It's just missing so much in way of content and level design. Worse yet, in a painful twist and what feels like a way to make up for the lack of content, the designers have made progression through the game excruciatingly time consuming. Maybe the levels in Tartarus do get interesting at some point. Who knows? After twenty-eight hours of repeating essentially the exact same dungeon over and over, I'm not willing to give it the time to find out.

Dear Persona 3,

I want to like you. I did like you... and maybe I still do. I just don't think you want me to like you any more.

Throughout our first ten hours together, you guided me through experiences I never dreamed I would enjoy. You showed me how to have a relationship, and even how to make my relationships with others stronger. We would sit in my living room and talk until the early morning about everything from love to death to psychology. I felt like I barely had to do a thing and you would shower your affection upon me through gifts and attention. It was a special time I'll not soon forget.

But, somehow, things have changed. It happened slowly and without notice, but now, twenty-five hours into it, I suddenly realize that somehow we've fallen into an inescapable rut. Our relationship feels like work; like a routine. You take me to the same places again and again, and we haven't done anything new in weeks. I feel like the only time I ever have any fun with you is when we're in school. Even then we're just doing the same things we've always done.

All you ever want to do at night is take me to that boring tower with its monotonous gray corridors, and there's nothing to do there but walk around and ride the elevator. Does that sound like something I want to do? Worse yet is that you don't ever reciprocate for the effort I put into our relationship. I work for hours to do something nice for you, only to have you shun me and ask me to work twice as long. Then, when I've finally made you happy, my only reward is an hour of fun followed by a relapse into our routine again.

Maybe one day we'll run into each other again, and we can hang out for a while as friends. I might even enjoy going back to the tower occasionally, for old time's sake. But I just can't commit to this relationship any more. I will never look at another game in the same way again, and I thank you for that. There are a lot of other gamers out there who will love you for what you are - but I'm just not one of them.