Rich Webb, Doctoral Student, School of Education: Instructional Design for Online Learning, Capella University. Email: tdiith@gmail.com

Rod Sims , Principal Consultant with Knowledgecraft and Adjunct Professor, Capella University. Email: rodsims@knowledgecraft.com.au

Keywords

online gaming, online gameplay, game modding, emergent gameplay, MMORPG, serious games, complex games, complex systems

Abstract

This paper presents ten important reasons why online gameplay and online gameplay communities matter to the future of education and instructional design. The list moves from evidence of impact, through the gathering mix of relevant forces and into the emerging construction of the socio-technological artefacts of this new learning culture. Online digital gameplay is becoming increasingly prevalent. Its participant-players number in the millions and its revenues are measured in the billions of dollars. As they grow in popularity digital games are also growing in complexity, depth and sophistication. Progressively, these varied elements are converging into synthetic artefacts that make the technologies simpler to use, more powerful in application and more widely accessible. Yet even as the technologies are converging their uses are rapidly diverging. They multiply and divide, combine and recombine. They grow in complexity. Their player-participants are spontaneously self-organizing and rapidly growing a wide variety of online communities. These communities “mediate, mash-up or modify” the gameplay experience in pursuit of their own visions. Some even manifest all the characteristics of fully-formed learning communities. Finally, online gameplay and gameplay communities are growing as a subject of educational research. These “games” are increasingly seen as “serious” and effective educational tools. There is an increasing recognition that games, while pushing the creative boundaries of interactive digital media, are suggestive as useful models for the development of next-generation interactive learning environments and learning systems.