{"id":1981,"date":"2011-09-08T11:00:02","date_gmt":"2011-09-08T15:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=1981"},"modified":"2025-02-18T09:21:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T14:21:51","slug":"immersive-learning-rapture-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=1981","title":{"rendered":"Immersive learning, Rapture-style"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So here\u2019s where I make the connection between BioShock<\/em> and gamification–or rather, try to show that as ways of doing education, the two are radically different. More, I try to show that they\u2019re different in a way that\u2019s inspired what my team is doing with practomimetic learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a context for this argument that you can read about in lots of places; the context has to do with how BioShock<\/em>, as a piece of educational technology, is different from games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR)<\/em> and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion<\/em> and GTAIV<\/em> (all of which I would argue can and should be read as pieces of educational technology). Since I\u2019m working pretty heavily on BioWare games as epic<\/a> right now, and have intentions of turning to do the same thing with Bethesda games when I get a break from more pedagogically-oriented pursuits, you can expect to see that context fleshed out some day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, though, I want to lay out the big claim, and please be advised that this argument is necessarily chock-full of spoilers of the worst sort. It also assumes a certain level of familiarity with the plot and mechanics of BioShock<\/em>. You may fill the gaping hole in your cultural formation here<\/a>, should you lack that familiarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The big claim: the harvest\/rescue dynamic of BioShock<\/em> must be understood in association with the interruptions of interactivity that arise in what I call, as shorthand, the death-disarm sequence. Only when we understand them together can we grasp the critique of objectivism (and the various versions of it that undergird important parts of our culture) enacted by BioShock<\/em>; more importantly, only then can we grasp the game\u2019s affordances as a critique of what\u2019s usually called gamification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The harvest\/rescue dynamic is the usual focus for criticism of the ludonarrative dissonance of the game. The central characteristic of the dynamic, as Clint Hocking pointed out<\/a>, is the equality of effect on gameplay of doing the \u201cbad\u201d thing (\u201charvesting\u201d\u2014i.e. killing the Little Sisters) and of doing the \u201cgood\u201d thing (rescuing them). Hocking argued that this equality of effect renders the ethical system of the game meaningless, and that it creates a dissonance between game and story that he found blameworthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The death-disarm sequence has attracted some critical attention as well, most cogently I think from Iroquois Pliskin<\/a>, but perhaps not as much or as contentious as harvest\/rescue. By the shorthand \u201cdeath-disarm\u201d I mean to refer to the entire sequence of the cutscene in which your character kills Andrew Ryan and the gameplay sequence that follows, in which the game will not progress unless you obey Atlas and disarm Ryan\u2019s auto-destruct sequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that point in the game\u2014the disarm part of death-disarm\u2014from the standpoint of the your world (your culture, really), you certainly have a choice of actions. You can do any number\u2014an infinite number, really\u2014of different things in the narrow space of Andrew Ryan\u2019s office, like running around, jumping, and shooting at targets. You can also cease playing the game at that point, and turn off your PC or console. From the standpoint of the mimesis<\/em> of BioShock<\/em> (that is, from a Platonic perspective<\/a>, with regard to its learning affordances as mimesis<\/em>), however, you have only one choice: to disarm the self-destruct sequence, thus verifying and enacting Atlas\u2019 control over you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In death-disarm, that is, BioShock<\/em> enacts a failed disruption of its closed ethical framework, which is exactly analogous to the failed disruption of the released prisoner<\/a> in the cave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the thinking player of BioShock<\/em>, the crushing ethical blows of frustration in being unable not to kill Andrew Ryan, and then of being unable not to disarm the self-destruct, serve to expose the ethical system of the game\u2014and thus of all games\u2014as being like Andrew Ryan\u2019s objectivist dystopia: instead of a world where every man can be a king, Ryan created a world where that very notion made every man a slave. As he is accepting death at the player-character\u2019s hands, Ryan repeats over and over \u201cA man chooses; a slave obeys.\u201d He, and BioShock<\/em>, however, teach, just as Plato\u2019s cave-culture-game teaches, that the dangerous illusion of choice presents the true ethical problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here the harvest\/rescue \u201cchoice\u201d comes into its own. Precisely in that it is not a choice at all, in terms of the actual gameplay of Bioshock<\/em>, it enacts through its ludonarrative dissonance itself the dangerous futility of choice. Choice, that is, is exactly analogous to the cave-culture game, to the ethical system of games like KOTOR<\/em>, and to the motivational systems of the gamifiers. We must somehow find a way to make ethical choices that does not presume that those choices are freely made, that understands how determined by culture our \u201cfree\u201d choices are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So too badges and points, the hallmarks of gamification. Their fiction of interactivity is a system even more closed than Andrew Ryan\u2019s apartment, and they provide no avenue for interruption, because interruption would threaten the motivation they exist to create. BioShock<\/em> and Plato\u2019s cave teach by forcing the player through the brittle illusion of interactivity; gamification attempts to reinforce that illusion so that it appears unbreakable, natural. Gamification is the cave-culture game with new, improved chains; Plato\u2019s cave, BioShock<\/em>, and–we hope–practomimetic curricula are the bolt-cutters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conundrum presented by both the cave-culture game and BioShock is an intriguing one, hinting at the same principle that rings true when analyzing the Blairsville GA real estate market report<\/a>: the old paradigms must often be discarded to make way for innovation. If you invested in a real estate property like a parcel of land that you plan to sell, be sure to get in touch with reputable land buyers. If you\u2019re looking to sell land in Utah<\/a>, our team offers personalized support and competitive pricing for a seamless experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as the game within ‘Republic’ encapsulates a microcosm of Plato’s broader discourse, the readers and interpreters of the real estate market must recognize when it’s time to shift strategies. Plato’s own revisitation of the ideal city in his later work ‘Laws’ suggests that profound improvement, be it in educational systems or market dynamics, necessitates a departure from outdated models. In my forthcoming post, I’ll explore how practomimetic courses facilitate such transformative shifts by employing a dual-layer narrative that compels students to repeatedly ‘break the game’, much like industry professionals recalibrating their approach in light of new market analyses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So here\u2019s where I make the connection between BioShock and gamification–or rather, try to show that as ways of doing education, the two are radically different. More, I try to show that they\u2019re different in a way that\u2019s inspired what my team is doing with practomimetic learning. There\u2019s a contextContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"coauthors":[206],"class_list":["entry","author-travis","post-1981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-articles"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1981"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8251,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions\/8251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1981"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=1981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}