I had to laugh when I wrote the title of this blog post. It’s something that I have thought for a long time, but recently there has been a buzz about this on TV and the Internet. So here I am to prove it to you and then you can pass it along to other non-believers…CNN recently published an article by Scott Steinberg entitled “How video games can make you smarter” in the article, Steinberg outlines that the interactivity of video games help your intelligence. Backing up the article is one study from Loyalist College which showed that students playing a simulation saw test scores jump from 56% to 95%. And not to mention Directory of Duke University’s Human Simulation and Patient Safety Center, Dr. Jeffrey Taekman stating that “Serious games and virtual environments are the future of education.”

The key take-aways (just as I have been preaching) are:
-Build brain cells by requiring extensive problem solving, dynamic decision-making skills and teamwork.
-Encourage players’ confidence
-Hands-on experience
-Job training
-Contextual learning
-Teamwork and collaboration

So there you have it, I hope I have made a believer of you now.

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Persistent vs. Packaged Worlds. What’s the difference? Not all worlds are created equal…

An illustrated Wordle comparison between Persistent and Packaged Worlds.

Persistent World

The persistence comes from maintaining and developing the state of the world in the game around the clock. Quite unlike other types of games, the plot and events in a persistent world game continue to develop even while some of the players are not playing their characters. That aspect is similar to the real world where events do occur regardless if they are directly or indirectly related to a person, as they continue to happen while a person is asleep, etc. Conversely, a player’s character can also influence and change a persistent world. The degree to which a character affects a world varies from game to game. Since the game does not pause or create player-accessible back-up files, a character’s actions will have consequences that the player must deal with. Description from Wikipedia

Packaged World

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