Gaming as Educational/Cultural Activity

I'll admit that I have not played many video games, not even as a child (I am one of those unfortunate few that has never played Super Mario Brothers). I wasn't really that interested. I've become a little more interested as an adult. I've seen friends play Grand Theft Auto (although people really into that game are hard pressed to hand over the controls to that, even for a moment). I've played a little dance Dance Revolution. I LOVE Guitar Hero, but have only played it a few times.

When I think of my interest in certain games as an adult, I think that it is because of the cultural context of it all. When I first heard about Grand Theft Auto, it was the game where you could kill hookers, and I thought, "Now that, I kind of gotta see." That game, Dance, Dance Revolution, and Guitar Heros were all over as cultural references; everyone knew what they were. I think especially in the case of Guitar Hero, those were all songs that I knew and loved and to be with my friends and pretend I was a rock star reminded me of being a kid. That's probably how the Rock Band game came about. When Gee writes in ch.2 that, "The learner needs to learn not only how to understand meaning sin a particular semiotic domain that is recognizable to those affiliated with the domain, but, in addition, how they think the domain at a "meta" level as a complex system of interrelated parts," I feel that almost everyone can understand the semiotic domain of Guitar Hero. Who hasn't, young or old, from any culture, been to a concert, done air guitar, or dreamed of being a rock star?

I do think it can be an education activity as well. People are strategizing in ways they haven't before, thinking in ways they haven't before. When you master a game (maybe not the entire game, but finally get the "feel" of it), it can be a very gratifying feeling. Gee says it best in ch. 1: playing games to him, " a new form of learning and thinking was both frustrating and life enhancing."