Playing at Reality Exploring the Potential of the Digital Game as a Medium for Science Communication Alexander Lewis Aitkin October, 2004 A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University Centre for the Public Awareness of Science Faculty of Science Declaration I certify that this thesis does not incorporate without acknowledgment any material previously submitted for a degree or diploma at any university and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it does not contain any material previously published or written by another person except when due reference is made in the text. The empirical work described within was not carried out with any other person. Alexander Lewis Aitkin Acknowledgements With thanks to Sue Stocklmayer and Chris Bryant – respectively my supervisor and adviser at the Centre for the Public Awareness of Science – for guidance and comments on my drafts. And with special thanks to my parents, to whom I dedicate this work. Abstract Scientific culture is not popular because the essential nature of science – the models and practices that make it up – cannot be communicated via conventional media in a manner that is interesting to the average person. These models and practices might be communicated in an interesting manner using the new medium of the digital game, yet very few digital games based upon scientific simulations have been created and thus the potential of such games to facilitate scientific knowledge construction cannot be studied directly. Scientific simulations have, however, been much used by scientists to facilitate their own knowledge construction, and equally, both simulations and games have been used by science educators to facilitate knowledge construction on the part of their students. The large academic literatures relating to these simulations and games collectively demonstrate that their ability to re-create reality, model complex systems, be visual and interactive, engage the user in the practise of science, and to engage the user in construction and collaboration, makes them powerful tools for facilitating scientific knowledge construction. Moreover, the large non-academic literature discussing the nature of digital games (which are themselves both simulations and games) demonstrates that their ability to perform the above tasks (i.e. to re-create reality, model complex systems, and so forth) is what makes them enjoyable to play. Because the features of scientific and educational simulations and games that facilitate knowledge construction are the very same features that make digital games enjoyable to play, the player of a scientific-simulation-based digital game would be simultaneously gaining enjoyment and acquiring scientific knowledge. If science were widely communicated using digital games, therefore, then it would be possible for there to be a popular scientific culture. Contents Prologue 1 Chapter One - Introduction 5 Chapter Two - Science Communication and Media 9 Science 10 Communication 13 Level A 14 Level B 15 Level C 25 Science Communication 36 Media, Representations and Science Communication 42 An Hypothesis 50 Chapter Three - Digital Games 53 Games and Entertainments 55 Interactive Entertainment 66 Data-Intensive Interactive Entertainment 69 Process-Intensive Interactive Entertainment 77 Metagame Activities 93 Interactive Entertainment Artefacts 97 Hardware 97 Software 102 Simulation Games 109 The Users of Interactive Entertainment 134 The Creation of Interactive Entertainment 147 Summary 157 Chapter Four - Scientific Simulations 159 What are Scientific Simulations? 160 Why Design Scientific Simulations? 162 Who Designs Scientific Simulations 167 Designing a Simulation 169 Using Scientific Simulations 171 1. Complementary to Empirical Investigation 171 2. Superior to Empirical Investigation 178 3. The Only Way that Empirical Investigation may be Accomplished 181 Factors Affecting Simulation Use in Science 183 Summary 187 Chapter Five - Educational Simulations 189 What is an Educational Simulation? 190 Why Use Educational Simulations? 194 1. Superior to Traditional Textbooks and Lectures 194 2. Experiences Difficult or Impossible to Gain Any Other Way 197 3. Desirable Types of Learning and Knowledge Construction 203 Summary 210 Chapter Six - Educational Games 212 What is an Educational Game? 212 Two Classes of Educational Game 216 Data-Intensive Educational Games 217 Process-Intensive Educational Games 221 The Creation of Educational Games 232 Summary 241 Chapter Seven - Conclusion 243 Can digital games make science intrinsically enjoyable? 244 1. SciSim games and science communication 250 2. Games, Science, Culture 255 3. How To, and How Not To, Design a SciSim Game 261 Appendix 279 References 283 Figures and Tables Figure 1 – The experiential learning model 19 Figure 2 – Piet Mondrian, Composition with Large Blue Plane, Red, Black, Yellow, and Gray, 1921. 21 Figure 3 – Comparison of sales of computer and video games. 101 Figure 4 – Interactive entertainment taxonomy developed by Talin (1994). 103 Figure 5 – Interactive entertainment taxonomy developed by Crawford (1991b). 104 Figure 6 – The popularity of various genres present in About.com’s Computer Simulation Games list (as per March 14, 2004). 110 Figure 7 – SimEarth screenshot. 113 Figure 8 – SimLife screenshot. 116 Figure 9 – SimAnt screenshot. 118 Figure 10 – Screenshot from Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 120 Figure 11 – SimCity 4 Screenshot. 123 Figure 12 – Civilization III screenshot. 125 Figure 13 – The Sims Screenshot. 127 Figure 14 – The sodaconstructor applet. 133 Figure 15 – Penetration of various technologies into U.S. households 1995-2001. 135 Figure 16 – Media consumption for the average U.S. citizen in hours per person per year. 136 Figure 17 – Comparison of U.S. sales of digital games and cinema box office takings for years 1996 through 2002. 136 Figure 18 – Percentages of digital game players by age group and platform. 138 Figure 19 – An educational applet. 192 Figure 20 – Screenshot of a typical edutainment, Childsplay, version 0.65. 219 Figure 21 – Screenshots from the Games-To-Teach prototype games Supercharged and Replicate. 230 Table 1 – The relationships between SciSim games and the other types of games and simulations investigated in this thesis. 51 Table 2 – Lists of game genres showing commonalities and differences. 102 Table 3 – A sample of complex systems that have been modelled using simulations 172 Table 4 – The main differences between educational simulations and games 213 Prologue The first ever video game was designed by William Higinbotham, a physicist working at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. BNL hosted both a particle accelerator and a small nuclear reactor designed for research. Because some residents of Suffolk County felt that the laboratory posed a threat to their community, BNL began to host an annual ‘visitor’s day’ in order to generate positive public relations. The idea was that visitors would see the harmless research being conducted there and feel more easy. One day, Higinbotham had an idea to entertain the visiting guests who were bored by the spinning reels and blinkenlights of the mainframe computers. ‘I knew from past visitor’s days that people were not much interested in static exhibits so for that year, I came up with an idea for a hands-on display – a video tennis game.’. The game he created was called Tennis For Two – and it was the first recorded iteration of the game that later evolved into Pong. Featuring a blip of electronic light, this revolutionary tennis simulation was programmed in 1958 by Higinbotham and his team using trajectory paths on an analog computer. The team also added two control boxes, each with a knob to control the ball and a ‘serve’ button – 1 likely the first implementation of a ‘joystick’ in an interactive game. Tennis For Two was displayed on a 5’ monochrome oscilloscope screen and debued in the Instrumentation Division display that same year. People waited hours to play (Burnham, 2001, p. 28). The story behind the development of the first ever digital-computer-based simulation- game♣ is in certain respects very similar. When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) received its first PDP-1 computer in the autumn of 1961, a group of computer science students began devising a plan for how to show off its capabilities, and particularly, how to show them off to the non computer-literate visitors who would come during MIT’s annual open-house day. “You Mean That’s All It Does?” When computers were still marvels, people would flock to watch them still at work whenever the opportunity arose. They were usually disappointed. Whirring tapes and clattering card readers can hold one’s interest for only so long. They just did the same dull thing over and over; besides, they were obviously mechanical – at best, overgrown record changers – and thus not mysterious. The mainframe, which did all the marvellous work, just sat there. There was nothing to see (Graetz, 1981/2001). The students wanted to develop a computer program that could demonstrate the abilities of the new computer, and a good demonstration program, they decided, ought to satisfy three criteria: • It should demonstrate as many of the computer’s resources as possible, and tax those resources to the limit. • Within a consistent framework, it should be interesting, which means every run should be different. ♣ Though not the first ever digital computer game (a version of Tic Tac