Computer game helps teach children about misery of war

By Haiko Prengel

The story begins as a teenage boy flees a burning African village by car. “Samuel, I have something very sad to tell you,” says the driver. “Your parents have been shot dead. It is an incredible piece of luck that you have survived.”

But whether Samuel really manages to get away from the gang of murderous rebels who have already killed his parents depends on the gaming skills of the 15-year-old teenager playing the computer game where Samuel is the hero.

People in Flight is based on the brutal civil war in the Congo. The learning effect the game has had on youths playing it has been so impressive that Serious Games Solutions, the company that developed People in Flight, was recently awarded the 2013 German Computer Game Prize in the “best serious game” category. According to the expert jury’s verdict, People in Flight earned the award because it made the problems and misery that refugees suffer emotionally comprehensible through its virtual reality.

A serious game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment, including educational value.

The market for such games is growing quickly, which is why Serious Games Solutions, based in Potsdam just outside Berlin, has dedicated its entire business towards specialising in serious computer games. “Our orders are evenly split between German and foreign customers,” says company CEO Ralph Stock.

Games can cost a five- or six-figure sum in euros to develop with the company’s customer base ranging from a German health-insurance company, AOK, to potato processing firm McCain.

The contract to develop People in Flight came from a Catholic mission support charity, Missio. The objective was to educate German youth about the problems refugees experience in Africa using games rather than the usual methods involving direct instruction or books.

Stock and his team developed an interactive tool which allowed children to experience for themselves with the help of an avatar the flight through a war-torn country.

The multimedia journey takes place in a large truck that is currently criss-crossing Germany and stopping in schools. “The kids are then able to continue playing the computer game at home on their own PC,” explains an excited Stock.

The question remains whether it is educationally meaningful if children learn about genocide by playing a computer game.

“The dilemma we face is that if the game contains too much information then it isn’t any fun. But on the other hand, if enjoyment is at the forefront then the information gets left behind,” explains Hartmut Gieselmann, a games expert from German computer magazine c’t who has been observing the phenomenon of serious games for 10 years.

For this reason, it is better to separate serious learning and playful relaxation in many cases.

“Games can illustrate connections in a completely different manner to books or films. They can supplement them but they should not replace them,” believes Gieselmann.

“The most important thing is that learning itself is a skill children have to learn, because otherwise later all they will be able to consume is multimedia content.”

Game developer Stock does not agree with the “black-and-white way of thinking” that he claims motivates some critics. “It’s all about creating a meaningful media mix,” says the 44-year-old.

Nobody is interested in eliminating the classic teaching and learning methods. Vocabulary and grammar still have to be learned the hard way at school by studying rules and doing practice exercises.

However, sometimes it is possible to improve a particular subject by presenting the information involved in a more interesting way, argues Stock, who was also nominated for another award in the best mobile game category.

In the iPad game Emergency, players have to deal with an everyday emergency situation — such as the grounding of a supertanker or a meteor strike. “That is of educational value,” said the panel of experts. – DPA