EDUCATIONAL ASPECT OF NON-EDUCATIONAL GAMES - On a case study of 'Assassin's creed 2' and 'Assassin's creed: Origins' - Theseus
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Olga Gonchar
EDUCATIONAL ASPECT OF
NON-EDUCATIONAL GAMES
On a case study of ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ and
‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’
Bachelor’s thesis
Game Design
2020
Author (authors) Degree Time
Olga Gonchar Bachelor of March 2020
Culture and Arts
Thesis title
42 pages
Educational aspect of non-educational games on 4 pages of appendices
a case of ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ and ‘Assassin’s creed Origins’
Commissioned by
South Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences
Supervisor
Suvi Pylvänen
Abstract
While most videogames are considered entertainment, based around narration or action
playing, the genre of educational videogames exists mostly for the use of children or as
assisting teaching tools. The line separating the genres can sometimes be erased in order
to encourage the players’ subconscious.
In this thesis work learning habits of players were studied in order to summarize the
learning experience within action games set in a historical setting, with real historical facts
as background narration points. As the case for the study two games were chosen:
‘Assassin’s creed 2’ (Ubisoft 2009) and ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’ (Ubisoft 2017), both of
which use historical setting for their narration.
The research was conducted through a questionnaire designed to determine players’ ability
to remember side information from games. The collected data was compared to the
answers of players unfamiliar with the case games in order to compare the efficiency of
using history as a setting for action games and its impact on the learning abilities of the
players.
The conclusion of the thesis was based around game mechanics used in the case games,
summarized with the experience of the players in order to draw guidelines for future
history-based game development projects. Since the work was theory and research based,
the guidelines are written as suggestions for possible practical application or additional
features improving the user experience and educational impact of future projects.
Keywords
game design, educational games, game development, research, learning
CONTENTS
CONTENTS ......................................................................................................................... 3
1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 5
2 USE OF HISTORICAL FACTS AS A SETTING IN NON-EDUCATIONAL GAMES ..... 7
2.1 The definition of Educational and Non-educational games ..................................... 7
2.2 Use of real facts in Assassin’s creed games .......................................................... 9
2.3 AC2 and ACO and the difference between their approaches ............................... 12
3 RESEARCH TESTING ............................................................................................... 17
3.1 Questionnaire goals, completion and the methods behind data collecting ........... 17
3.2 Statistical results ................................................................................................... 18
4 RESULT ANALYSIS AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE CASE STUDY ..................... 21
4.1 Generalization of the results into a player persona ............................................... 21
4.2 Methods of learning behind the relationships between the player and the game . 30
4.3 Methods of development and application of the educational mechanics to non-
educational games ......................................................................................................... 33
5 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 35
REFERENCES .................................................................................................................. 38
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................ 41
APPENDICES
Appendix 1/1
Appendix 1/2
Appendix 1/3
5 1 INTRODUCTION Nowadays, even with a growing assortment of products on the market, the video- game industry is still seen mostly as an entertainment provider. Games are considered a hobby or a leisure activity, with rare exceptions, purely dedicated to learning: such as educational games used to assist children or school students in their studies. While there have been numerous studies on the impact gaming has on motility, reaction and strategic decision making, general division between educational and non-educational games is still leading to the lack of recognition of action games as potential learning tools. This work will be dedicated to researching whether or not action games not specifically developed as learning tools can have subconscious educational impact into long-term memory of the player. As the case, the author takes ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ (AC2) and ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’ (ACO) as two methods of using in-game setting as a teaching method. While being designed in historical settings, the games can be potentially used to attract interest in history and encourage learning about it using real facts and materials as gameplay or story driving mechanisms. With the case games having different approaches towards historical setting representation and teaching tools, they will be analyzed in order to understand their approaches better. The thesis research part will require data collecting through a questionnaire and its analysis in order to determine which of the existing and used methods of subconscious learning is more useful for long-term memorizing. The collected data will be used to create a player persona, a visual representation of the game users. With positive results and research into methods of improvement, action games can be modified into valuable teaching tools, allowing players to balance entertainment and education through a comfortable in-game environment, stimulating subconscious learning without losing its enjoyable side. The goal is to collect enough data about the habits and memorizing experience of the players in order to develop a better understanding of the line between educational and entertaining gaming and its implementation into future history-based projects.
6 While there have already been numerous researches conducted on similar subjects around videogames having positive impact on young audience (Wilms et al. 2013), it has not been specifically targeted towards history and the combination of entertainment and education in non-educational games. Previous studies include researches on the influence of videogames on reflexes and motoric skills (Drew & Waters 1986) and reading and mental abilities (Franceschini et al. 2013). This thesis will be divided into three main parts. The first part, theoretical, is based on the game design theory and genre aspects of case games, with the goal to establish the borders within which the games can fall under the definition of educational or non-educational genres. Understanding this line of separation can be crucial in pushing the limits of action games’ educational mechanics without losing the entertaining aspect. The theory will later be applied to the case study games in order to confirm their genres and explore the educational mechanics used in the games along with the use of the historical setting as a narrative tool. The second part is focused around data collecting and analysis, starting with the development of the questionnaires for the specific target group and later application of data collecting methods to the analysis of the results. The statistics will be used for creation of a player persona which will be used as an example for later game mechanics and player behavior analysis and design. The third part is dedicated to applying the established gamer persona to the existing methods of education within the case games in order to observe the relationship between the player and the historical game setting of the games and their mechanics. The relationship will be analysed according to known studies on subconscious learning in order to apply them to corrections and designs of educational mechanics within the non-educational game genre. The goal of the research is to find the most practical approaches used within the case games and compare them to the questionnaire results in order to establish
7
how effective they are and how they could be improved for further use in
development of game projects set in historical time periods.
2 USE OF HISTORICAL FACTS AS A SETTING IN NON-EDUCATIONAL
GAMES
2.1 The definition of Educational and Non-educational games
In order to distinguish the line between educational and non-educational games it
is important to establish the core definition of the discussed genres. Drawing the
line between the genres will be crucial in understanding the significance of action
games in education and their usage as potential teaching methods.
Educational games are designed with a purpose of assisting in memorizing
information or working on development or improving of skills (Ifenthaler et al.
2017). They can be focused on memory puzzles, solution finding, analysis or
problem solving. While some educational games focus on one subject, like
‘Hiragana Pixel Party’ (Springloaded 2017) developed to assist in learning
Japanese alphabets hiragana and katakana in playful manner, some may be of
wider skill variety, for example ‘Big Brain Academy’ (Nintendo 2005) published for
Nintendo DS served as a combination of math, logic, reason and memory
puzzles. History becomes a theme for video games quite often, but educationally
history is used partially in trivia games or as parts of wider knowledge educational
games. History based questions in ‘You Don’t Know Jack’ (Jackbox games 1995)
and ‘Trivia murder party’ (Jackbox games 2016) are used as a part of a bigger
question catalogue and are mostly aiming for specific trivia answers, that is not
purely based on average level of history knowledge.
However, when it comes to using history as a main theme for the game, it is
mostly used as a background for action adventure titles, such as ‘Red Dead
Redemption’ (Rockstar Games 2010) and ‘Valiant Hearts: The Great War’
(Ubisoft 2014), etc. Both mentioned titles are placed in action games genre with
subcategories of adventure and puzzle, in the case of ‘Valiant Hearts’. They do
not fall under the category of educational genre due to the main aspect of them
8 being dedicated to storytelling and focusing the player on achieving the goals of the narration rather than working on improving skills or memorizing information. While action games mostly focus on challenging players’ reaction and reflexes, in the market they are used as a base for other genres: adventure, RPG, strategy, sports. The study case games from the ‘Assassin’s creed’ series are officially marketed as action-adventure genre games (PlayStation Store), but they can be described in smaller genre categories. The games of the series fall under the description of stealth games due to the high percentage of the gameplay wing dedicated to encouraging the player to use sideways, distractions and stealth to achieve the objectives. In case of ‘Assassin’s Creed: Origins’ RPG genre can be applied due to the changes in the character management mechanics. The addition of skills points, crafting menu, collectable gear and character statistics with levelling system for upgrades turns the game to a new direction of role-playing genre, not used in the series before. However, when it comes to the use of history as a setting for the in-game story, it is not enough to assign educational genre to the game. As mentioned before, educational games are focused around improvement of certain skills. While problem solving is a general term that can be applied to some elements of in-game mechanics, asking a player to find the most suitable way of achieving the objective, in the action-adventure genre it mostly revolves around already created solutions. For example, a stealth mission level design already comes with a premade layout of possible routes and outcomes, leaving the player with just a task of finding the most preferable route or discovering them by trial. While being set in a historical setting, the games do not follow the patterns of educational games made specifically for memorizing the material. In ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ the facts and information are presented to the player in two forms: main scenario, allowing a fiction interpretation of the facts in favor of action narration, and optional database, revolving around facts and brief descriptions of locations, events or real historical figures’ biographies. The game does not require you to
9 memorize the facts and will not check your learning progress, the database entries are not used for the story completion and do not affect the gameplay. This way, since the game does not in any way reward the player for investing time into reading the optional database entries it is clear that the game does not prioritize learning over the core game mechanics and action gameplay. 2.2 Use of real facts in Assassin’s creed games In ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ the player takes on the role of a XV century Italian aristocrat, Ezio Audiore da Firenze. Starting off in Florence, year 1476, the game takes the story through Venice, Tuscany Forli and Monteriggioni, allowing the player to see these places reconstructed by the developers team with help of a team of architectural and historical consultants. According to María Elisa Navarro, who assisted in development of ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ as an architectural consultant, the team’s job was to ensure the in-game setting was accurate to the time period, yet worked well with the mechanics of the game. The work involved details correction and maintenance of the cultural and historical accuracy to the setting, in such details as art, architectural elements, city layout and character design. The cooperation between the history department was meant to help not only with minor details but also with major story and level design, for example the choices of using particular real locations based on level design needs instead of creating them and ruining the immersion. (Saga 2015.) The decisions made in favor of historical accuracy created new entries in the database, giving a player an opportunity to learn more about familiar locations and personalities through the prism of the selected setting (Figure 1). For example, visible changes to famous scenery according to preserved documentations were done under the control of historians on set: “You see the Duomo of Florence without the 19th century additions; Venice’s Rialto Bridge is made of wood, not stone; those sorts of details.” (Flory 2009.)
10 Figure 1. Rialto Bridge in ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ (Ubisoft 2009). The developers have said that for accuracy and inspiration, photographers and artists of the team had trips to the location for gathering materials, including photos and video footages, that would later be used as reference. Corey May, co- writer of ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ in his blog-post shared that some of the most iconic and well known attractions of Venice were not added into the game due to historical inaccuracy: for example, the Vasari Corridor and Uffizi gallery did not exist until later in history and could not be on the map in game, as well as some buildings had their facades changed to what they were like during the in-game setting years, removing later installations. (Stuart 2010.) However, from the technical perspective, recreation of an entire living city was difficult for the developers of ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ in 2009, leading to limitations, fixed in later games for the next generation of consoles and computer power. In addition to scaling some of the city elements, technical difficulties made the developers team remove some of historically accurate details from the map of the city. For example, the Battistero di San Giovanni, located near the entrance of Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore was removed, despite being built in XII century, long before the events of the game, was removed from the game due to high
11 intensity of textures on the nearby cathedral and Giotto’s Campanile. In addition, changes to the events depicted in the game story were made: for example, the assassination of Giuliano Medici, known as the Pazzi conspiracy, was in held inside Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral, while in game it was depicted on the plaza in front of it (Figure 2). It can be explained by technical difficulties in staging the event to happen inside the cathedral, according to the developers and Simonetta Marcello, a history consultant. (Hsu 2010.) Figure 2. Ezio participating in the Pazzi conspiracy in front of Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ (Ubisoft 2009). With later improvement of platform hardware these technical difficulties were eliminated in favor of more detailed and accurate reconstruction of scenes and events in the game. In ‘Assassin’s creed: Unity’ (Ubisoft 2014) the developers and the artist team created a detailed model of Notre-Dame de Paris, in addition to the ability of the game to render around 10 000 character models on screen at the same time (Webster 2014), adding significant accuracy to the crowdedness of Paris at the time of the French revolution. Later installments into the series had more hardware power and capabilities for creating bigger and more accurate scenes and cities. In ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’, depicting the events of 48 BCE, the developers had the ability to create
12 the biggest open world land map in the series (excluding the sea maps of ‘Assassin’s creed: Black Flag’ that could only be traveled by a ship along with inaccessible areas still marked on the maps) to the time of the release (Daro 2018). When it comes to the effort put in the accurate representation of ancient Egyptian setting, the game director, Ashaf Ismail shared that egyptologists were invited to the team to help recreate the map of Northern Egypt. Attention to the details lead to consulting a team of linguists in order to create a version of spoken ancient Egyptian, and studying of demographic records of the time in order to create a realistic and accurate depiction of the local civilians. In development the team used monographies, archaeological reports and archives in order to create an immersive setting for the game. (Nielsen 2017.) 2.3 AC2 and ACO and the difference between their approaches When it comes to presenting facts to the players, there are two approaches used in the series: through the story and in the additional database. In ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ the player is presented with more and more locations and famous personas as the story is unraveled, adding new database entries every time there is a new first encounter. The game gives a player a choice to open up a database entry (Figure 3) whenever it becomes available. For example, when the player first sees Palazzo Vecchio, the game will offer him or her to read the entry by opening a separate menu window. In the database window the player has an option to see an image of the location and read a description of it. The game, however, does interfere with the real facts in the database adding fictional points in the descriptions, following the in-game narration and adding more immersion to the player.
13 Figure 3. Database entry in ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ (Ubisoft 2009). The entries sometimes contain fictional parts, based around the interaction between the player character and the environment, as well as the writing style is set to imitate personal notes written by one of the characters in the game, which adds personal quotes and sometimes opinions on the subjects. Some entries in the database open incomplete and continue updating along with the story progression, mostly for the fictional characters. Being divided into sections, the database makes it easy for the player to navigate and find the right article when in need of additional information (Figure 4).
14 Figure 4. Systematization within the Database in ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ (Ubisoft 2009) In ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’ the developers team took a different approach at exploring the limits of educational influence of the game by creating a separate game mechanic for exploring the game setting. The Discovery tour was designed as a violence and combat free mode to allow the players to experience the setting of Ancient Egypt without being distracted by the enemies or game story. Consisting of over 70 articles, the tour goes through the entire game map, focusing not only on big cities like Alexandria, but putting interest points in small villagers to depict the life of common folk as well as nobility. Being fully voice narrated, the Discovery tour was designed with a possibility of being used in schools. Maxime Durand, a full time historian for the game series, in ‘The History Respawned’ podcast (Whitaker & Durand 2018) shared that the separate educational mode for the game was requested by teachers and fans of the game already after the release of ‘Assassin’s creed’ (Ubisoft 2007), the first game in the series, which lead to an early prototype in 2009, which was turned into the Database mechanic for all the later game installments. It would not become a separate mode until ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’ first introduced it as a free DLC (downloadable content), which according to the developers, could be used in class as a standalone educational tool. In the podcast Durand shares that in the development process of the Discovery tour the team was consulting not only historians but also teachers in order to select topics for the mode in correlation to
15 the United States school curriculum. Covering the segments of school history lessons, topics were selected and sent to historians and experts, who would provide the team with data on the subjects, which would later be shortened into entries the players could read and listen to in the tour. The goal of easy integration for school use set some technical and gameplay difficulties for the developers. The Discovery tour had to be run on school computers and be easy to pick up by users with little to none gaming experience. These challenges led to the creation of a separate application available for Windows through Steam or the official Ubisoft store, as well as the creation of separate tutorials made in consideration of users unfamiliar with basic controls (Whitaker & Durand 2018). The separate Discovery tour allows the users to follow simple tutorials on how to move and does not put them through the use of most game mechanics, such as combat and freerunning. For an even more comfortable experience the autoplay mode was integrated, allowing the tour to run without any involvement of the user. Additional simple navigation makes it easy to follow the direction of the tour and travel between the entry points by following highlighted paths (as shown in Figure 5), but it still allows the user to freely walk around the map and explore the tour in any order, or see places not marked as part of the Discovery tour. Figure 5. Highlighted paths indicating the tour direction in the Discovery tour in ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’ (Ubisoft 2017).
16 Removal of the core gameplay, story mode and combat made it possible to lower the age restriction of the game to 12+, allowing it to be used in class for children of any age. Along with mechanics challenges, Durand pointed out that the process of map recreation was not easy for the team, as a lot of the in-game world had to be filled with fiction due to the lack of information on the subjects (Whitaker & Durand 2018). While maintaining the accuracy required to make the in-game world authentic and immersive, a lot of information of minor details was missing. The team had to recreate some smaller cities based on gameplay preferences, yet putting accurate details in the design to use them as Discovery tour points, for example smaller villages were filled with interactive lessons about the life of common folk (Figure 6), while the general recreation of the landscape was a free interpretation of the art team. Figure 6. Example of a station in the Discovery tour in ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’ (Ubisoft 2017). As also mentioned in the interview, combining facts with an action gameplay required the developers to make some minor changes to the landscape in favor of comfortable gameplay, for example, the height of the pyramids in the Giza complex was enhanced as the landmark could be useful for the players in navigating and needed to be seen from a large distance. This and other changes made for the gameplay are mentioned in the Discovery tour entries and explain
17
the necessity of them and difference between the in-game models and real
facts. (Whitetaker & Durand 2018.)
3 RESEARCH TESTING
3.1 Questionnaire goals, completion and the methods behind data
collecting
The primary goal of the research was establishing a connection between gaming
habits in games with historical setting and facts memorizing. The questionnaire
(Appendix 1) primarily divides interviewees into two groups: gamers and people
not used to gaming. The idea behind the questions is to see whether or not
people who have played ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ and ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’
remember more facts from the in-game settings touched in their school
curriculum. In addition to the comparison based on the trivia questions, the
questionnaire also contains general questions about learning habits and usage of
interactive software and games as teaching tools with possible implementation to
school curriculums.
The questionnaire was divided into three segments: general information about
the interviewee, trivia history questions and general information about learning
via games or other entertainment media. Multiple questions in the questionnaire
were designed with multiple options for the interviewee to more precisely
evaluate their opinion on the subject. For example, the general learning and
gaming habits segment allowed the respondents to choose the level of
agreement to statements about their preferences in media.
The target group of the research was school children (13 - 17 years old) due to
the history questions being based on USA school history program. The total of
received responses was 38. Some of the questions were not filled in by some
respondents due to online distribution of the questionnaire and inability of the
author to provide personalized instructions to each of the respondents. Based on
‘Google Forms’ platform, the empty forms and unanswered questions were
removed from the final results. The respondents were from different social18 groups, they do not share learning environment and have been selected as volunteers through open online distribution of the questionnaire. Due to the small number of respondents the final statistical analysis of the questionnaire priorities quality over quantity of the responses. Qualitative research is based on analyzing personal opinions and thoughts prioritizing individual approach over massive data collection. 3.2 Statistical results When analyzing the results of the survey, the responses were primarily divided into two groups: people who tagged themselves as gamers, and people who did not. This division was made for the purpose of comparison between the groups in order to see the differences in general information about gaming habits and learning experience. Then, the second comparison was between people who have played the case games and who have not. The comparison’s goal was to see if the percentage of correct answers is higher within the group that have played the games. In the summary, the majority of the respondents (81%) have been put into the category of gamers (Figure 7), which allowed their responses about gaming habits and learning through media to be compared to the remaining percentage of the responses. Figure 7. ‘I consider myself a gamer’ answers diagram (Gonchar 2020).
19 Further comparison of the answers shows that on average, respondents of the gaming group have answered similarly to the questions related to gaming habits, with few exceptions (as shown in Figure 8). Figure 8. ‘I enjoy learning out of school curriculum’ answers diagram (Gonchar 2020). The question was added to see how many of the respondents would consider using educational materials in their lives as an after-school activity. With the majority agreeing, it can be connected to the possible use of entertaining activities as educational tools at home. In an additional question, 100% of the respondents have stated that they “enjoy learning through entertainment media (ex. TV-series, games, internet entertainment content, etc.)” (54% - Strongly agree, 46% - Agree). However, in the question “Would you enjoy more interactive educational tools implemented into school curriculum (ex. games during lessons, interactive tests, etc.)” 8% of the respondents (3 people) have said ‘no’, which leads to an assumption that for achieving the biggest audience, educational software should not be presented in a form of an obligatory school activity or played during official classes. If it is used as an after-school activity, it could be implemented as an optional way of learning or memorizing information, with an option of a non-compulsory examination, not connected to the official school evaluation. When evaluating the responses related to the correlation between respondents experienced with ‘Assassin’s creed’ and respondents who have not played the case games, noticeably there is not a distinct correlation between the answers and gaming background. The most general questions, for example “Do you know
20 who Leonardo da Vinci was” have been answered correctly in 100% of the responses. More uncommon question based on historical personas were answered better by the game audience: the question “Do you know who Niccolo Machiavelli is” was answered correctly by 3/5 gamers (60%) who have played ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ before in comparison to 10/29 (34%) respondents who said they have no experience with ‘Assassin’s creed’ series or have played the other installments not related to the study case and the historical period in discussion. In addition, respondents who have played ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’ set in ancient Egypt have given more elaborate and detailed responses when asked what they know about Cleopatra and Julius Caesar. The questionnaire involved three questions based on visual memory. The respondents were provided with three pictures of famous architectural structures: Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, Piazza San Marco in Venice and Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Respondents who have played ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ featuring these places have answered correctly 11/15 times (73%) in comparison to 14/29 times (48%) of respondents with no experience of the game. Even though the answers in both cases varied in their precision, the results show that the respondents, who have played the game set in the setting featuring the places in question know their general locations based on their visual memory. In the question based on self-evaluation (“I possess basic knowledge of Ancient Egypt history and culture”) 14/29 (48%) respondents with no experience of ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’ set in ancient Egypt have answered with ‘Agree’, compared to 3/4 (75%) from the respondents familiar with the game. One of the questions for learning the gaming habits of the respondents was asking them to personally evaluate if in their opinion they have learnt anything from video games or other entertainment media. Only seven respondents answered ‘no’, in comparison to 31 ‘yes’ (as shown in Figure 9). The respondents, who have answered positively were later asked to describe what they have learnt. Nine responses were about games and entertainment media assisting in learning a foreign language and improving vocabulary, and six
21 respondents mentioned them improving history through games (‘Assassin’s creed’ series in five cases, ‘Valiant Hearts: The Great War’ in the remaining 1). Figure 9. ‘Can you say you have learnt something new through videogames’ answers diagram (Gonchar 2020). The fact that ‘Assassin’s creed’ series is mentioned as a source of history knowledge shows that some of the respondents have considered it helpful and assisting in learning. This way the respondents on their own stated that they find the history setting educational, presenting the facts to the players in a form of in- game interactive story narration. 4 RESULT ANALYSIS AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE CASE STUDY 4.1 Generalization of the results into a player persona With the survey generalizing the results and looking at them from the statistics point of view, a more visually understandable approach can be used to assist in future projects. To understand the needs and habits of the players better, a payer persona is developed. Player persona (also known as ‘composite user archetype’) is a mental picture or a representation of the target audience of the game, helping the developers to understand the required aspects of the project better, by referencing it. Player persona explains what is already established
22 about the users’ behavior and preferences in the product, that can be used in development. According to Cooper et al. (2007) the concept of a player persona can assist in understanding the user behavior and applying the information about the target group to the interactive design. Cooper suggests modelling personas as a visualization of research results for better comprehension in project development. The key to understanding the player persona and the target group is modelling it based on an in-context interview or other method of data collecting. ‘User archetypes’ based on collected research data are not to be confused with ‘stereotypes’ - assumptions about the target group and users not based on factual information. The player persona can follow different descriptions and aspects depending on what could be useful for the developers: for example, age, gender, occupation, income, etc. All of the mentioned characteristics can already narrow down some conditions for the developers, such as age restriction ratings, length of the game and required time to be invested into it, pricing and marketing, guaranteeing that the selected target audience will be capable of comfortably affording the product. Such criteria give the most basic idea of a potential player, that the developers can keep in mind in the early stages of development. When it comes to deeper understanding of mechanics and gameplay, player persona can be used as an average result of play testing, to see the average ability of players to solve the in- game problems and understand the core mechanics. Multiple characteristics can be used to describe a player persona, depending on what problems and situations it is expected to help with. One of the core characteristics applied to player persona in modern videogame development is Bartle taxonomy of player types, used to systemize player personas according to their core goals and behaviors in game. Created in 1996 by Richard Bartle, the taxonomy served as a description of four types of players in multiplayer online games, later used for single-player game analysis as well. The four types used by Bartle were created based on players’ goals and interaction with the game world: Achievers, Explorers, Killers and Socializers (Figure 10).
23 Figure 10. Bartle taxonomy of player types (Bartle 1996). Achievers – gamers who strike for rewards. In single-player games their goal is to beat the game, finish it, earn all the possible rewards, and in case of an award system existing on the platform - 100% it. In multiplayer games, they find appeal in being appraised by other players, and will be looking for ways to show off their progress: for example, through titles, high class armor, or items only available at restricted levels or after completing certain objectives (Figure 11). Explorers – gamers invested in the side aspects of the in-game world and story. This type of player is likely to spend more time reading additional in-game materials, explore the surroundings, invest into the game lore, solve puzzles and do side quests. They are more interested in single-player games, due to the possible lack of long-lasting content in multiplayer games. They can grow bored
24 of routine in the world they have finished exploring in MMORPG (ie. Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game). Socializers – social aspect. For such players the most appealing game is a game where they are able to interact with other people, and so single-player games are not interesting to them as much, unless they have co-op (co-operative) mode, allowing them to share the experience with someone. Socializers are more interested in multiplayer games, in which it is possible to cooperate with other players, for example, creating guilds, taking on quests together, or in general meeting new people. Killers – a group that sets a goal of competing with others. In single-player games they are mostly interested in ways of defeating enemies and feeling the sense of superiority. In multiplayers they can be divided into two categories: politicians (establishing a good reputation of success) and griefers (establishing a bad reputation of abusing other players or being openly hostile towards them in order to assert dominance with their skill).
25 Figure 11. Example of an Achiever player wearing high level achievement armor in a MMORPG ‘Final Fantasy XIV’ (Square Enix 2010). Player persona can have one of the mentioned characteristics at a time, but big titles like ‘Assassin’s creed’ series should often consider more than one aspect in creation of the game, trying to fit it to multiple types of players. In the case of this study, the case games have been categorized as non-educational action games, which puts the educational aspect to the background of the gameplay. In both games of the study the information and facts about the setting and the historical periods are presented in a form of an additional game mechanic. Based on the questionnaire results, it is possible to establish that most of the players are willing to research side information if provided with an opportunity and relevance to the story. Since most of the respondents said that they can get distracted by side activities or information, but enjoy learning about it, it is possible to put the player persona for the case study in the Explorers category.
26 As an explorer, the player will be likely to invest time in reading an additional piece of information, a database entry in case of ‘Assassin’s creed 2’, or explore the Discovery tour of ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’ separately from the main game. However, it is important to create a line between necessary and optional, in order to give the player the freedom they need to explore. In the survey, as one of the questions the respondents were asked if they would read a long manual/text/description knowing it would be helpful in the game. The responses showed that less people would invest in a long compulsory text, than in side optional reading. It can be explained by the factor of being able to pick up on an optional read at any time the player has time and motivation, as well as impatience over spending unnecessary time of the gameplay to read without being able to skip. Therefore, it is important to understand the line between entertaining education and compulsory learning, which could potentially drive the players off. Based on Barlte’s division of player types entertaining education should give the player a choice or feeling of having a choice of reading additional information, without reminding or checking. Feeling of compulsory learning can occur when the player is feeling pressured to memorize information or study something without an option to skip. It can lead to the loss of interest or skipping of important information. Balancing the amount of information and presenting it as light optional reading would look more appealing to Explorers, and encourage them to dive deeper and look for additional information. For a better understanding of the persona, it is possible to use additional descriptions and characteristics applied to it. One of systems similar to Bartle’s taxonomy is The Gamification User Types Hexad Scale (Tondello et al. 2016), a collaborative work conducted to expand known characteristics of a gamer persona more in relation to a wider variety of game genres in comparison to Bartle’s work, based mostly around MUD (Multi-user Dungeons) games (Figure 12). Since the case study games are single-player and have no co-op mode, it
27
could be useful to look at the player persona from this perspective.
Figure 12. Gamification User Types Hexad Scale (Marczewski 2016).
The Gamification User Types Hexad Scale has 6 categories, with “significant
associations with the Big Five personality traits”:
• Philanthropist - players with goals. They engage in trading, collecting and
assisting with game knowledge.
• Socializers - interested in social connections. They find appeal in teaming
up and interacting with other players.
• Free spirits - motivated by freedom of expression. Such players seek to
find all the details and secrets of the game.
• Achievers - similarly to Bartle’s work, such players wish to progress in
game and overtake challenges, with rewards and methods to demonstrate
them to others.
• Players - users striking for points, prizes and high achievements.
• Disruptors - players who try to change the game and explore its limits for a
change (positive or negative).28 While being generally similar to the Bartle taxonomy, the system has a more modern approach of inclusivity, and can be applied to both single-single player and multiplayer games. If we are to use this system to describe a potential player persona for the side educational mechanics of the game, Free spirits would fit the best. With ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ as a main game being rated R for maturity, it does limit the potential usage of it in classrooms. In the case of ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’ the problem has been solved by the development of the standalone Discovery tour, that does not share the main game’s age rating of 16+. Using it as an example for developing a restriction free educational mechanic of a game, it is possible to establish the player persona to be of average school age, basing it on USA school history program. In average, ancient Egypt is covered in the first year of middle school program, giving us the lowest age of 12 for the player persona. The top limit for the age can be set to 18, if the case project is fully dedicated to distribution to schools, but the average gamer age can go up to 40 or over. The questionnaire audience was set to 13 - 17 years old, school age. Based on the answers related to gaming habits of respondents who identified themselves as gamers, it could be established that the majority of the players are enthusiastic or do not mind investing into side activities or lore of the game, as long as it is not presented in a form of a long read. The player persona visualization is presented in the Figure 13.
29
Figure 13. Player persona visualization. Made with HubSpot 2020.
Player persona analysis:
Goals and motivation to play For the question about preferred
genres the majority of the respondents
put Action-adventure RPG games,
with additional genres including FPS
(first-person shooter), MMORPG
(massively multiplayer online role-
playing games), puzzles, etc. Since
‘Assassin’s creed’ series is developed
as a single-player game with limited to
none online features, it can be said
that the player persona is looking for
an action-adventure RPG game with
its core elements: physical skills and
challenges of action games, narration
and story of adventure genre and
RPG elements of taking a role of an
in-game character with points of
development and improvements.30
Age 13 – 17 years old (middle – high
school)
Occupation Middle or high school
Gender and nationality NA
Player characteristics (by Bartle’s Explorer, Free spirit
taxonomy and Gamification Hexad
types)
Devices used PC, PlayStation4, XboxOne, mobile
phone (iOs, Android)
What they are looking for In addition to the basic description of
the genres, the player persona is
looking for a history setting with an
ability to explore the open world. The
user expects additional lore and
surrounding information to be
presented in optional short forms with
interactive aspects.
4.2 Methods of learning behind the relationships between the player and
the game
The goal of this research was to see if players are capable of subconscious
learning of facts through a game focused on action rather than education
primarily. First, it is important to identify what subconscious learning means.
Subconscious (not to be confused with ‘unconscious’) can be described in two
ways: thoughts or feelings the subject does not comprehend or know about
(Macmillan English dictionary no date) or the mental processes happening
outside of consciousness of the subject (Meriam-Webster's Dictionary no date).
The definitions above suggest that subconscious process is a process happening
in a person's head without his or her realization or awareness. Therefore,
subconscious learning is a process of learning by a person without31 acknowledging it. In the case of ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ and ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’ the game allows the players to memorize historical facts throughout the game while keeping the main accent on the action adventure gameplay. In the questionnaire, the majority of respondents (81%) have stated that they believe they have learnt something through video-games. The most common answers involve language improvement (when the player switched the game language settings to a foreign language he or she studies) and history (with examples mostly being ‘Assassin’s creed’ series, but also including games like ‘Valiant Hearts: The Great War’ (Ubisoft 2014) and ‘Total War’ (The Creative Assembly 2000). While none of the mentioned games are developed as educational, the setting and general UI, dialogues and narration assisted the players in learning information throughout their gameplay as a subconscious process. Broadwell (1969) suggested four-steps process of learning: ‘Unconscious incompetence’ (not realizing the existence of a demand for unknown information), ‘Conscious incompetence’ (acknowledging the lack of knowledge and necessity of its obtaining), ‘Conscious competence’ (the knowledge or skill is acquired and can be performed), ‘Unconscious competence’ (ability to perform the skill or recite the knowledge on without having to process it, automatically. The skill or knowledge enters the ‘unconscious’ part of the brain). This four-steps process can be applied to the Discovery tour within ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’. When the player first engages into the game and interacts with the world set within a new time period, there is no necessity for having previous knowledge about the era, the lack of knowledge and the amount of new information is step one – ‘Unconscious incompetence’. Throughout the beginning of the game, the player will be unlocking new areas and characters, new points of interest will be added to the map and to the narration, engaging the player to explore and catch up on the missing knowledge – ‘Conscious incompetence’. With time, the player is able to recognize locations, names, historical figures and general points in the story, taking place in the game, becoming a casual part of the gameplay – ‘Conscious competence’. By the end of the game, once it is complete, the facts are
32 memorized and can be optionally improved with the Discovery tour or by completing side objectives, exploring the setting – ‘Unconscious competence’. Based on the survey results, 34% of respondents would only read material if it is kept in a short form even if it is useful for gameplay (Figure 14) and 55% of respondents prefer strategic approach to challenges over rushing in, which means they are likely to invest into learning about the environment and do research on the problem (Figure 15). The correlation between these questions is that for the comfort of the players and learning encouragement it is important to deliver information in short forms. Based on the answers, 84% of players can be distracted by the side activities and information, and 65% have agreed that they would enjoy a game more, knowing it has an educational impact on them. This suggests that players can accept educational aspects implemented into the core mechanics of the game without losing interest in it. Figure 14. ‘Are you more likely to read a long text/manual/description..’ answer diagram (Gonchar 2020).
33
Figure 15. Strategic and improvising approach answer comparison diagram (Gonchar 2020).
However, as mentioned in the first chapter (‘Definition of genre’) the difference
between educational and non-educational games is in the core goal of the game:
action-adventure RPG, selected as the case games genre, puts entertainment
and narration over information memorizing and does not enforce or check the
learning progress of the players. The balance between the entertainment value
and educational impact should be maintained to keep the players invested into
the game as it provides them with information in moderation.
4.3 Methods of development and application of the educational mechanics
to non-educational games
‘Assassin’s creed 2’ system of the database optional to read was a choice in
favor of the entertainment side of the game, it provided the players with additional
information without interfering with the gameplay. Leaving the most of the
educational information aside, the game still left the player with an opportunity to
explore the maps, meet the historical figures (Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolò di
Bernardo dei Machiavelli, etc.) and witness the historical events of the time
period with explanations within the in-game dialogues. However, even with the
database entries not being compulsory to read, the game encouraged the players
to learn on the spot via pop-up notification about the Database updates, in
comparison to ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’ and the Discovery tour system. The
Discovery tour was more of an independent mechanic, and existed separately
from the game. The player can access it through the main menu, but has to leave34 the main game to do that, as well as the progression of the main game does not affect the Discovery tour entries. The player not experiences with the tour beforehand can play through the game without being notified about the mode’s existence. Excluding the in-game narration, the only pieces of additional educational information are presented to the player through short ‘hints’ within the loading menus. The players are able to scroll through the hints consisting of maximum of two sentences while the game is loading, with the game providing over ten ‘hints’ per loading screen. The ‘hints’ include short details about architecture, historical personalities or lifestyle of the in-game era. Based on the responses in the questionnaire it is important to maintain the approach of giving the information in small portions without them seeming obligatory for the players to read. Combining the approach of the ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ Database mechanics with the Discovery tour, it is possible to give the player the option of choosing between reading short introductions to the topic and switching to a more detailed mode. As such, the game could provide the player with a short entry to the topic when it unlocks, with a possibility of choice between switching to the Discovery tour instantly or saving the tour as a bookmark. In the case when the entry is saved as a bookmark the game could store it and remind the player about saved tours in the main menu and inside the Discovery tour. Such approach could motivate the players to invest time in reading and learning as soon as there is an opportunity, unlike the current Discovery tour being completely separated from the main game. The ability to switch to the educational mode from the main game immediately could serve as a way to repeat facts learnt through the in-game story in a more official learning environment. The difference between the in-game short entries and the Discovery tour could also be in the writing manner. Alike the entries in the Database of ‘Assassin’s creed 2’, it is possible to use more unofficial method of writing, in order to make the entries seem like a continuation of the in-game lore rather than being purely educational and standing out from the main feel of the in-game setting. In the Database that is done by making the entries as if they
35 are written by one of the in-game characters, with personal commentaries and informal speech. 5 CONCLUSION The initial goal of this thesis was to learn about player habits and learning motivation within the environment of potentially educational historical setting of ‘Assassin’s creed’ series. The author’s hypothesis was based around the concept of subconscious learning through visual content of the games as well as the narration within the stories. Following the idea that ‘Assassin’s creed’ games can assist children of school age in learning history by using it as an interactive setting, the author had to establish boundaries between educational and non- educational games. In the case of ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ and ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’ educational genre cannot be applied due to the main focus of the games being on action gameplay, storytelling and their lack of learning progress examination. While the case games are developed as action-adventure RPG genre, they are written with levels of historical accuracy limited by technical difficulties, gameplay mechanics or narration points. In development the team used the assistance of historians and architects to build the setting as accurate as possible within the games. Using archives, documents, encyclopedias and other sources, ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ introduced purely educational entries to the game series, later improved to a more detailed and immersive educational tool in ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’. Both games have different approaches towards presenting more educational information to the players. ‘Assassin’s creed 2’ uses the system of the Database, accessible by players at any time in the game and story, opening entries upon the players encountering new historical figures, events or locations. The Database entries are stored in the main menu systematized by categories with pop-up notifications about new entries upon their obtaining by the player following the progress in the game story. ‘Assassin’s creed: Origins’ uses the Discovery tour mode. Being a separate mode, the Discovery tour requires the players to exit
36 the game to the main menu and start the tour as a separate session. The game does not encourage the player to necessarily undertake the tour and does not remind about its existence. However, the design of the Discovery tour was developed with a goal to create a separate immersive tool with possible application to the in-class education based on the USA history school program. With that in mind, the Discovery tour is designed with minimum to no gameplay aspects and possible autoplay mode, being easily accessible to teacher and users with little or no gaming experience. The tour includes themed stations lasting from 5 to 20 minutes with subparts in them. The player is walked through the setting with the narrator and the text based on the topic, with some stations involving the player’s avatar’s interaction with the environment with the assistance of short controls tutorials. The research part of this thesis was based on the questionnaire designed with the purpose of learning about school aged children’s habits and learning motivation. The questionnaire was shared online and involved not only experienced gamers but also respondents who do not identify as such. This helped to establish the division between the two groups in order to compare the results of both history and media habits sections of the questionnaire. The comparison was made in order to see if there is a correlation between the experience of playing ‘Assassin’s creed’ series and knowledge about the history periods used in the case games. The third part of the questionnaire consisted of questions about respondents’ motivation to learn through entertainment media, their experience or learning through it along with their opinion on using such media as educational tools in schools. The research group was selected by the principle of volunteer participation through online distribution of the questionnaire. With the final number of respondents being 38, for more detailed research a bigger selection of respondents would be preferable. The low number of respondents suggests that the research results can be unreliable and further bigger surveys would be needed for a more detailed analysis, including a balanced proportion of both gaming and non-gaming groups. Also, it is important to take in consideration the aspect of respondents experienced with the case game being more willing to answer the questions, making the conditions for the
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