Defining Productive Play

Sebastian Trelles Defining Productive Play Foundations of Play and Games
11-12-2012 ITU Copenhagen Fall semester 2012
Foundations of Play and Games

Espen Aarseth and Daniel Vella
Defining Productive Play

The productive element in play, games and simulations
IT University of Copenhagen Fall Semester 2012

Sebastian Trelles stre@itu.dk
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 3 1.1 1.2 Purpose ........................................................................................................... 3 Methodology................................................................................................... 3
2. Play, Games and Simulations .................................................................................... 4 2.1 Play and Purpose ................................................................................................. 4 2.1.1 Meaningful Play and a re-interpretation of Huizinga...................................... 5 2.2 Games and Productivity ....................................................................................... 5 2.2.1 Intrinsic Motivations behind Playing Games ................................................. 6 2.3 Simulations in an Educative Model ...................................................................... 7 2.3.1 Low-fidelity simulations and their experimental status .................................. 8 3 Analysis of productive activities................................................................................. 9 3.1 Case Study N 1: Kings and Queens..................................................................... 9 3.2 Case Study N 2: Office Simulation Courses ...................................................... 10 3.3 Case Study N 3: Harvest Moon......................................................................... 11 3.4 Serious Games and their place in an Educational Context .................................. 13 4 Defining Productive Play ......................................................................................... 14 4.1 Common elements in productive activities ......................................................... 14 4.2 Productive Play.................................................................................................. 15 5 Conclusions ............................................................................................................. 16 5.1 Study overview .................................................................................................. 16 5.2 Observations and Further Research .................................................................... 17 6 Bibliography ............................................................................................................ 18 7. Ludography............................................................................................................. 19
1. Introduction
1.1 Purpose
Since times long past, the terms play and games have been generally defined profitless, unproductive activities, with no material. The objective of this paper is to present the concept of productive play, a form of play that is indeed productive and has a meaningful outcome. The paper intends to question contemporary approaches to Serious Games and Simulations, giving an alternate view to this problem, and complimenting on Huizingas definition of game and Caillois definition of play1. To sum up, accept that there is a form of play that has a productive outcome and make space for it in the scientific community.
1.2 Methodology
Firstly, study the different concepts of play, game and simulation, relating them to the possible productivity in these activities. Suggest that the actual problem about serious play/games vs. non-serious play/games is actually a definition problem - as scholars try to label different types of activities which share many common elements as the same. Talk about productive play aspects inside games and simulations (analog and digital ones), and how they differ from Huizingas game definition. Establish that this is too different an experience from the play definition that Caillois suggests. Secondly, present a couple of scenarios (games and activities) where play may indeed be productive (proving the similarity between the activity of playing and the definition of play), but contradicting the fact that a playful activity should be profitless and with no material interest. Not limiting play for children, but also for adults.
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Definitions complimented with Rules of Play study of various classical game and play definitions. Salen, Katie & Eric Zimmerman (2004)
Thirdly, define productive play, a form of play where there is always a meaningful outcome and a productive result to playing, which would fit the activities from above, and question if a possible area of playful computer activities may exist, providing a couple of examples (such as Office Simulations and Health Games).
2. Play, Games and Simulations

2.1 Play and Purpose
According to Huizinga in his play definition: Summing up the formal characteristics of play we might call it a free activity standing quite consciously outside ordinary life as being not serious, but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained from it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules 2 Huizinga claims that playful activities are those that are not real, but at the same time absorbing as if they were, with no material interest or profit to be gained from it. Huizinga is somewhat ambiguous in his definition, as he does state no material interests or profit may be gained, but makes no mention to knowledge or skills earned in the process. According to The Playful and the Serious (Rodriguez, 2006), the philosophical motivation of Huizingas study is the fact that theres meaning in every play, as theres a conscious process between all players and the game where understanding in a
Huizinga Homo Ludens (1938), page 13
conscious level is reached, connected with society and its evolution through the ages. Huizinga also states that play is not usually engaged to acquire an extrinsic or secondary benefit, such as playing sports to be healthier, or playing a game in a group to break the ice. He argues that these activities exist and may be engaged in this manner, but they are not playful at all. Is it impossible for a manner of play that involves a degree of seriousness and a degree of playfulness in it to exist? Why should academics limit themselves to just classify the purely playful activities, ignoring the ample rest of activities which may be engaged in different ways? 2.1.1 Meaningful Play and a re-interpretation of Huizinga A way of interpreting what Huizinga meant with its meaningless play is that individuals play for the sake to play, with no ulterior motives (secondary hidden motives than those stated in the activity), but that play has been meaningful through the ages. A manner of play which involves an attitude that is both playful and serious will be presented in this paper, contemplating the case of having purpose and meaning behind play. This concept clashes with part of Huizingas definition, though it provides an interesting and different view on everyday activities that are not being taken into account, as they indeed have a purpose or motive behind them: being productive.
2.2 Games and Productivity

As Roger Caillois mentions in his book Man, Play and Games (1961), games possess six distinct characteristics or dimensions3:
All definitions taken from Man, Play and Games (1961), page 9
Free - not obligatory; if it were, it would at once lose its attractive and joyous quality as diversion. Separate - circumscribed within limits of space and time Uncertain meaning that the outcome is not predetermined Unproductive - nothing is produced in play, though money can change hands Governed by rules - under conventions that suspend ordinary laws, Make-believe - accompanied by a special awareness of a second reality or a free unreality, as against real life As stated by Caillois, one of the characteristics of games is them being unproductive, where nothing is produced in the game. Not only is this definition dubious (Caillois specifically addresses the case of gambling, still saying the activity is unproductive) but also limiting. What does the productivity of a game has to do with its condition of being a game? And whats the matter with the rest of the space of games which may be productive under certain circumstances? 2.2.1 Intrinsic Motivations behind Playing Games The manner in which individuals engage the activity is at the core of the problem, as an answer cant be formulated without clearly addressing the attitude and the motive of play. If playing tennis to practice or to gain health, is it not a game anymore? Do games need to remain purposeless and unproductive?4
This matter was brought upon Huizinga himself: to him, the health-benefactors did not engage playing tennis in a playful manner at all.
What this paper attempts to prove is that a game may indeed be productive without the core experience changing. The current classical definition is too restrictive and lets out many activities that are games but also have a purpose. A game should be played for the sake of playing it, but may also be played with another objective in mind, regardless of its importance. The motivation behind playing the game is not restricted to either one or the other, but may be a blend of both, being both playful and productive.
2.3 Simulations in an Educative Model

The field of simulations has always been very ample, ranging from simulations with educational purposes, clinical healthcare simulations to entertainment simulations. A focus will be put on the first set of simulations, as it proves to be the one related the most with productivity. According to Alessi & Trollip5, the primary purpose of an educational simulation is to engage players in experiencing and understanding the model in which the simulation in based. The users are expected to engage in activities involving problem-solving, experiential learning, hypothesis testing and development of mental models6. Researcher Kurt Squire holds an interesting comparison of games and simulations in his paper Videogames in Education: If we compare games with simulations, we find that while game rules are fictional and not necessarily related to any real-world activity, simulation rules always deal with reality and are consistent with it (with certain degree of abstraction) (Heinich, et al. 1996). We can distinguish between high-fidelity and lowfidelity simulations, whereas high-fidelity refer to cost-expensive activities (such as
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Alessi, S.M. & Trollip, S.P. (2001). Multimedia for learning: Methods and development. Winn & Synder, Cognitive perspectives in psychology 1996
plane flying or military activities) and low-fidelity address simpler, more abstract models to allow students to interact with more complex models in an easier way. 2.3.1 Low-fidelity simulations and their experimental status Low-fidelity simulations prove to be very interesting to those interested in educational games, as they provide the adequate level of abstraction, and theres a great deal of experimental data supporting the role of simulations in teaching. Therere three particularly interesting case studies regarding educational simulations in science education (Jackson, 1997), where students were taught about a certain topic and then given a program to further explore the science and theory related. The Journal of Applied Educational Technology, Volume 3, Number 1, 2006 stated: The author drew two key conclusions which are supported by data collected during the study. First, simulations can motivate students to become actively involved in their own learning. Second, the positive instructional benefits of simulations can only be realized if students are guided and supervised throughout their exploration of the simulation. The presence of an instructor or coach, scaffolding and feedback are crucial for effective use of simulations in instructional settings. From these conclusions, a major point may be highlited, which will be of use when defining several concepts later on: experimental proof that simulations may be useful to promote learning in educational environments, and their potential to promote productive activities. 7
The major point the authors of the study attempted to reach was to identify the common and distinctive elements between games and simulations. Their conclusions are of great importance to this paper, as
3 Analysis of productive activities

As playful activities are more open, defined and creative, games are objective-based and closed, and simulations attempt to most-closely resemble the real activity they are related to. A couple of these experiences are going to be analyzed in the next sections, and from this analysis, the terms productive play and productive activity will be defined.
3.1 Case Study N 1: Kings and Queens

Many daily life activities that may be considered playful possess a productive outcome. A playful activity used to teach history in schools will be referenced: Kings and Queens across the eras. This activity enacts how royalty and peasants behaved in different countries through the eras. The activity is simple: in classes, the teacher would talk about a particular important King or Queen and the reign in their country (Louis XIV of France, Queen Victoria of UK). After finishing each period, we would play a game for an entire class: Kings and Queens. Each child would draw a piece of paper with a role in it (a King/Queen, ministers, nobles, servants, peasants) and they would have to enact it. The teacher would go around the classroom looking at the play that ensued, mentioning details and directing the whole activity, as a master going deep into how the place looked like, the objects/artifacts that they had, the habits they had, etc. The activity had no restriction other than enact and act as people from that period and court. What is the potential outcome of this activity? It is much more restrictive than pure free play (as every monarchy is very different from one another and each child had a distinct
common elements for simulations, play and games in a productive content are trying to be identified. Sauv, L., Renaud, L., Kaufman, D., & Marquis, J. S. (2007)
role), but there was still a high degree of freedom for each child to explore, play, and in consequence, learn. It is part mimicry play, as the children enact their roles and living in the era, but its in great part simulation as well, as they draw ideas from the societies they know and seen in films and cartoons. Does this activity share resemblances with a playful activity? It certainly does, as it stands outside ordinary life, it is not serious (as in not for real) and is absorbing. However, there is a strong productive outcome from this, which is the learning of each period and king/queen through playing, not only earning experience in recreating the activity, but helping children retain the knowledge. This is Productive Play that is, playing for fun, but also playing for learning. In this particular case, the game master, the teacher, was the person who prepared the activity with the productive outcome, and the children engaged in it.
3.2 Case Study N 2: Office Simulation Courses

It is common for Software Development businesses to buy course packages for their employers to do when they enter the enterprise or when they have no tasks assigned. They are mostly half-hour or 1-hour online courses, heavily text-based with exercises at the end. However, some of these courses are different, featuring interactive and applied content, which makes them a much superior way of learning.8 These are called interactive office simulation courses, which deal with several specific topics such as Effective Communication with Difficult Coworkers, Creating HighPerformance Teams and Conflict-solving in Teams. The users are first shown a situation summary, with the actors, roles and objectives to be fulfilled. After this, the simulation starts.
These studies are taken from Skillsoft Course Base. The course Effective Communication with Difficult Coworkers Simulation is available for free on the internet.
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Each simulation involves facing a number of related situations and solving them in the best possible way. Each situation is comprised by a number of choices the player has to make, each of them involving different aspects and having different output values. When hovering over each choice, a small theoretical explanation of the choice would appear, with the player having to balance his values and intentions and imagining each possible outcome. The courses dealt with common-sense problem-solving and applying specific methodologies, and excelled on their purpose. In one hand, theres a focus put on learning through practice and experiencing, which is very characteristic of simulation experiences. On the other hand, the course does not try to recreate or teach how a system works, but make the users learn about a specific topic or methodology, craving a rational sense and conduct, which is more typical of other productive activities. This could help define a Productive Activity in the context of Playful Activities an activity which has the potential to have a positive outcome. In the field of play and games, we could say that the activity has to be engaged in a playful yet productive manner, being open and permeated by the knowledge and experience it conveys.
3.3 Case Study N 3: Harvest Moon

Serious Games have been around for a couple of decades already, enveloping different types of experiences with certain productive content. Games for Health, Educational Games, Games with clinical purposes are some examples this particular field includes.
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Taking on the field of Serious Games, I address a specific game I think is relevant on this field, which does not fall into any of the categories above mentioned, but possesses elements that make it an undoubtedly serious game. Its Harvest Moon9. The Harvest Moon series has been popular for being the first well-known farm-life simulator.10 On the core of the experience, theres the farming system, where the player has to plan, buy and care for crops and animals, making the farm progressively more productive. Apart from the farming aspects, theres a big deal of social life involved, where the player gets to know villagers, make friends, acquire new properties and expand the house, get married and even have children. The point in this game is far from teaching how to tend to crops and raise animals, as the tasks are too easy and the abstraction too high-level. However, the message and feeling this game conveys is unique: the game motivates players to work hard, and rewards them for their progress. It rewards the player for being good-natured and hardworking in a unique way, not with points and achievements, but with a feeling of selfsatisfaction and fulfillment, sentiment that translates to the real world in a great deal. In this case, this activity does not require the player to engage it in a productive manner, but the productive outcome is the experience of playing the game and understanding that hard work will be rewarded. The game is not specifically made to be serious or educational, as entertainment is a big part in the game. Its the fun what keeps the player going, and the experience the one that conveys the experience.
10
Pack-in-Video. (1996). Harvest Moon [SNES game]. North America: Natsume http://www.ign.com/articles/2008/02/11/harvest-moon-review
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3.4 Serious Games and their place in an Educational Context

For this study to be more relevant and take into account a larger number of games, several games from a handbook for teachers in Europe have been referenced and further studied.11 The handbook includes games and examples from several categories. It includes Americas Army12, a game used by the American military to recruit and select soldiers; Wii Fit, regarded by the ISSA and AHA as a game that promotes health and fitness13, Game Maker as a game with the potential to uncover childrens creativity and aid them in their creation of games14; Global Conflicts: Latin America, a game that raises awareness of industrial pollution in Latin America15; and Civilization III, which has been used in American schools in order to teach history16. From these games, the following purposes are noted: Military training, Fitness, Mental and Physical Health, Creativity by Making Games, Raising Awareness, Learning History. The games are varied in their type and include a wide variety of mechanics, including game-making games, environmental simulations, strategy games with historic content, and games that promote healthy life habits to their players. These games productive and educative content is unrecognized when applying the definitions for play and games, and the lack of formal studies demonstrating their usefulness in real life prevents this subject from being expanded upon. It is to note that the knowledge, creativity and health condition gained are always followed by advisors
11
The handbook is European Schoolnets Digital Games in Schools Handbook, written in the Framework of European Schoolnets Games in Schools project. 12 http://www.americasarmy.com 13 http://www.wiifitnessactive.com/wii-health-benefits/ 14 http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/CompSci_Kid_Programming.shtml 15 http://www.globalconflicts.eu/ 16 Squire, K. (2004). Replaying History: Learning World History through Playing Civilization III. Available at: http://website.education.wisc.edu/kdsquire/dissertation.html
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(teachers, couches, etc.), and some of these variables are hard to quantify. With a theoretical clash of definitions and difficulty in providing experimental evidence, its understandable of why the field has not grown since. Definitions and examples will be presented in the next section, attempting to build grounds for others to expand upon them, and hoping that the gap between reality of Serious Games and their place in the community is abridged.
4 Defining Productive Play

4.1 Common elements in productive activities
Various activities with various different elements have been analyzed. Most of them can be engaged with a productive purpose (mainly education, health and creativity). Many of them were designed with that specific purpose, but many others were not, and are still productive. Due to the big focus in educational games and childrens education, most games and simulations are engaged with a playful attitude (typical of kids in educational environments), but other games such as the military training one is also engaged with an attitude reminiscent of Agon17 experiences. However, all of them possess productive outcomes. Most of the players need close guidance from a teacher, instructor or coach for them to act in full potential, as history lessons compliment on games that teach history, or geography lessons help children understand the environmental problems regions have. In the case of creativity games, the children are mostly left freely to create and design, following patterns from their imagination, but the game will work better if accompanied by creativity triggers.
17
Agon is one of four elements of play mentioned in Roger Caillois book Man, Play and Games, 1961
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In some of the games, the objective of the game is directly related to the expected outcome of the productive activity (develop creativity by creating games, learning about military soldier training). In others, however, the objective of the game is different, but helps in attaining the activity aim (in Civilizations, learning history is not part of the game, but a productive extrinsic outcome).
4.2 Productive Play

From the activities analyzed in the previous section, an attempt to put together their common elements and define them will be made. Productive Play: A form of play where the players engage the activity in a playful yet productive manner, which has a productive purpose and where theres an expected positive outcome from the activity. Generally, the activity is prepared or designed by an advisor (teacher, coach, trainer), and its content varies according to the target audience expected. It relates in great deal to the players motivation to play. For instance, practicing sports for health purposes has a clear purpose of improving ones health. Practicing sports for fun or professionally does not. To professional competitors, keeping their health condition is important, and thats why they carry out long hours of practice and physical exercise. In the game, however, their objective is not to improve their health but to compete and win.18 Huizinga, Rogriguez, (playing is a medium where lived experience is organized as a structured situation) Productive Activity: An activity that is engaged in a productive manner, with an expected productive outcome. In the games field, a productive activity may be engaged
18
As Rodriguez claims in his paper The Playful and the Serious, play is not characteristically undertaken to acquire extrinsic benefits, which would mean that professional tennis players play but players who do it for health dont. The new definitions contemplate the latter as productive play, and argue that the players motivations are both to play and to improve their health.
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in a productively playful manner, making it especially interesting in our field of study. Huizinga seems to state that playful activities and serious activities are indeed not the same, but they are not completely isolated. These activities are the ones addressed by this definition. With these new definitions, the study of games and simulations in an educative context may formally be studied, expanding upon the concepts and definitions presented, taking into account all the daily life uses people give to games and activities without concerns of clashing with Huizinga and Caillois classic definitions.
5 Conclusions
5.1 Study overview
This study was made in an attempt to promote academic research on the field of Productive Play and Games, trying to bring close the Playful and the Serious and creating definitions to handle productive objectives in the act of playing games. Playful activities, games and simulations have been studied, theoretically and practically. The classical definitions were contrasted with daily life activities and issues that clashed with them were identified. Some games were selected for further study and analysis. These finds were complimented with information from the application of Serious Games in European Education, and the common elements were selected. With those common elements and the theoretical background learned, the concepts of Productive Play and Productive Activity were defined, hoping to build some new grounds for debate and reconsider the productive element in games. 16
5.2 Observations and Further Research

In this paper, many activities that possess the potential to be productive have been presented. It has been found that these activities have many common points, such as being playful yet productive, having an advisor follow on the players progress, and a productive objective that may or may not coincide with the game objective. It should be noted that there was no experimental study performed nor has data been collected for the purpose of this paper alone, which could have helped support the definitions stated above. Due to the high amount of papers and studies relevant to the field, only a few were selected, and a small number of examples have been provided. A more extensive practical study would have helped compliment on the study, but fell outside of the scope of the paper. It is the ultimate objective of this paper for scholars whose field of study relates to serious games and productive activities to expand upon the concept of productivity in games, in order to build a solid theoretical base for this subject.
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6 Bibliography
Roger Caillois (1961). Man, Play and Games, Chapters 1-2 Huizinga (1938). Homo Ludens, Chapters 1-2, 10 The Leisure of Serious Games: A Dialogue by Geoffrey M. Rockwell, Kevin Kee http://gamestudies.org/1102/articles/geoffrey_rockwell_kevin_kee Loading the Dice: The Challenge of Serious Videogames
http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/woods/ The Playful and the Serious: An approximation to Huizinga's Homo Ludens http://gamestudies.org/0601/articles/rodriges Sauv, L., Renaud, L., Kaufman, D., & Marquis, J. S. (2007). Distinguishing between games and simulations: A systematic review. Educational Technology & Society, 10 (3), 247-256. (http://www.ifets.info/journals/10_3/17.pdf) Skillsoft Course Effective Communication with Difficult Coworkers Simulation : http://www.alc.amadeus.com/content/public/disk2/skillsoft2008/Web/Content/COM M004BA1.htm European Schoolnet 2009, Digital Games in Schools A handbook for teachers http://games.eun.org/upload/gis_handbook_en.pdf Salen, Katie & Eric Zimmerman (2004): Defining Games, in Rules of Play, ed. by K. Salen & E. Zimmerman, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 70-83. Alessi, S.M. & Trollip, S.P. (2001). Multimedia for learning: Methods and development. Winn & Synder, Cognitive perspectives in psychology 1996 IGN.coms Harvest Moon review http://www.ign.com/articles/2008/02/11/harvest-moon-review
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7. Ludography
Pack-in-Video. (1996). Harvest Moon [SNES game] U.S. Army (2002). Americas Army [PC game] Nintendo (2006). Wii Fit [Wii Game] Firaxis Games(2001). Sid Meiers Civilization III [PC game] YoYo Games (1999). Game Maker [PC game] Serious Games Interactive (2008). Global Conflicts: Latin America [PC game]
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Sebastian Trelles Defining Productive Play Foundations of Play and Games

11-12-2012 ITU Copenhagen Fall semester 2012

Foundations of Play and Games