Video games are the best teaching tools, yet why do learning games suck?!?

[Legend]

"The only source of knowledge is experience."
-Albert Einstein

Video games allow us to learn through experience everything imaginable. Experiencing say "managing a city" in real life is pretty hard, but in Cities Skylines it's easy. Experiencing the revolutionary war is impossible in real life, yet in AC3 it's fun!

Yet learning games suck! They take traditional learning experiences such as flash cards and apply them to games. Boring and non informative. I'd like to do the opposite. Take traditional gaming experiences and apply them to learning. God of war is one of my favorite franchises and it taught me so much about greek mythology. I never cared about learning all that stuff but now it's ingrained in memory.



I'm really thinking after VizionEck is finished I'll focus on this for a quick game concept. Apply this learning by game experience formula to some of the hardest to grasp concepts: general relativity, quantum mechanics, higher dimensional geometry, etc. I mean how flipping awesome would it be to actually think in 4 dimensions? Plus hahaha for this concept I could probably get some sizable grants.

[the-pi-guy]

Finally someone is asking the big questions. 
I want a game that immerses me in a language.  If it was fun, I'd learn it so fast. 
There's already a game kinda like that, but it didn't seem too appealing. 

It's seems like no one has any good ideas on how to realistically teach boring material in a fun way.  Like, how do you teach the quadratic formula in a game? 
History is fairly easy, because you can wrap interesting stories in true history, even if the true history would be boring. 
I think physics has good potential.  But math seems challenging. 

[DD_Bwest]

To me, video games have always been an amazing teaching tool for reading, spelling and typing.   does anyone remember all the right type?   ... i learned how to type better and faster by playing online PC games before the era of microphones lol

My son is also one of the best readers in his class because i would refuse to read video game text for him lol and in order to talk to anyone on psn he needs to send msgs which forces him again to learn spelling etc. lol  so much of kids learning to read and write is getting them interested,  video games are a great way to grab kids attention and make them want to learn so they can have more fun with games lol


but onto games meant for learning and teaching.. I think Maybe its because no one has wanted to take the financial risk to make a decent learning game, as it might hit the younger generations as an attempt at school   the best would be to trick them into learning.  Enough of these made up wars and stories, I would love a historical documentary game covering ww2 lol going back to the one i mentioned in the dream game thread.   With many different SP campaigns, covering soldiers from most of the countries, air ground and sea,   showing historical battles, and teaching real lessons.  But its scale would be absolutely massive it could be a ten game series    

[Raven]

One of the great things about games, Legend, is something you pointed out. God of War got me interested in actually learning about the myths behind the characters. I knew the game wasn't a totally accurate representation of the characters but it didn't need to be. What was important is that it made me interested in them enough to go look up what they were actually described as. What the stories told. I already knew a bit about the Greek pantheon but I had no idea just how twisted some of the things they did were. At least, what the stories said about them.

[BasilZero]

Video games specifically jRPGs have taught me the english language while I was still learning it

(No joke - it helped me)

Not sure about the experience like the Revolution posted in the OP....but its still fun and interesting!

[the-pi-guy]

Video games specifically jRPGs have taught me the english language while I was still learning it

(No joke - it helped me)

Not sure about the experience like the Revolution posted in the OP....but its still fun and interesting!

Cool stuff. 

[Legend]

Video games specifically jRPGs have taught me the english language while I was still learning it

(No joke - it helped me)

Not sure about the experience like the Revolution posted in the OP....but its still fun and interesting!

What's your native language?

[Legend]

Finally someone is asking the big questions. 
I want a game that immerses me in a language.  If it was fun, I'd learn it so fast. 
There's already a game kinda like that, but it didn't seem too appealing. 

It's seems like no one has any good ideas on how to realistically teach boring material in a fun way.  Like, how do you teach the quadratic formula in a game? 
History is fairly easy, because you can wrap interesting stories in true history, even if the true history would be boring. 
I think physics has good potential.  But math seems challenging. 

Quad form=angry birds type game.

[the-pi-guy]

Quad form=angry birds type game.

That idea is better than most(all) learning games, but still could be better. 

[Mmm_fish_tacos]

What's your native language?

Woman

[BasilZero]

What's your native language?

Malayalam

Woman

Shaddap you n_n......woman.

[Xevross]

Brain training DS was awesome, helped me learn my times tables easily.