I’m teaching HIST3812: Digital History (Games and Simulations for Historians) this term. Past experience has taught me that whenever I actually try to force students to learn some digital skills – to do digital history – I encounter pushback and resistance. Why that should be is fodder for another day,Continue Reading
Gamification – love it or hate it, any time you use some sort of game mechanic, you’ve done it. Which makes ‘being a student’ the ultimate game of all. Write an essay, do a mid term, ace the final, level up to the next course, forget the previous course’s content…Continue Reading
Ian Bogost is always interesting to watch. He hit the blogosphere recently with a strong declaration that ‘Gamification is Bullshit‘, where bullshit is used to conceal, to impress or to coerce. Unlike liars, bullshitters have no use for the truth. All that matters to them is hiding their ignorance orContinue Reading
As recent events have reminded us, torture for the purposes of interrogation is a part of our cultural heritage in the United States. And, so are games. But what about the combination of the two? Games featuring harsh interrogation techniques are rare, but they’re out there. Lately, though, I’ve beenContinue Reading
Since its founding in 2010, Play the Past has had the good fortune of hosting many enriching and far-ranging discussions on the intersection of history, cultural heritage, and games. In celebration of our 10th anniversary, we published this last November a brief account of the origins of Play the Past.Continue Reading
We discussed Ethan Watrall’s foundational role in The Story of Play the Past, with regards to the Play the Past website, and community. Because of the demands and responsibilities incumbent to his role as Play the Past founder and manager—not to mention his academic career—Watrall’s writerly contributions on the blogContinue Reading
Ten years ago to this day, on November 17, 2010, Ethan Watrall officially launched a new blog, “Play the Past“, dedicated to a small community of scholars and enthusiasts, seeking an on-line venue to discuss ideas about the new culture of “gaming history”. Hosted by Watrall at Michigan State University’sContinue Reading
This interview is the part two of a three-part series on teaching historical game studies at the undergraduate level, and part one of our interview with researcher Julien Bazile. In this interview, we discuss with Julien his role in co-designing the HST 287 “History, video games and gamification” course, offered inContinue Reading
At Play the Past, we’ve had a long-standing interest in the intersection of history, games and education. Many of our current and legacy contributor hail from the world of education, and you can read them on as varied topics as video games and educational theory, gamification vs. game-based learning, educationalContinue Reading
E3, The Electronic Entertainment Expo, was just last week, so there’s quite a bit of videogame news circulating about the internets right now. Amid the waves of game trailers and press releases, most of us could be forgiven for not knowing that during the hubbub of the convention, a numberContinue Reading