While in many respects the literacy practices developed through digital games are similar to those required for any other digital media, we argue that digital games are different because they are enacted by the player. Thus, we definite gaming literacy to include: 1. 1. ‘textual’ literacy --- the ‘new literacies’ associated with digital iterations of ‘reading’ (or playing) and ‘writing’ (or producing) in combination and in multimodal forms (e.g. New London Group, 1996); and 2. 2. ‘literacies’ specifically linked to the action-based processes of digital gameplay (e.g. Atkins, 2006; Galloway, 2006).
Digital games deserve a central place in an expanded repertoire of texts brought into the curriculum for study, but they cannot be understood simply on textual terms – successfully capitalising on digital games in the classroom requires an understanding of students’ out-of-school gaming practices on their own terms.
Games as Action:
The notion of ‘ergodic’ (Aarseth, 1997, p. 1) is the crucial concept from game studies that marks the importance of understanding digital games as action. The term emphasises the physical actions (‘labour’) of the player in the configuration of the final game ‘text
Digital games are enacted on two levels: by the players, and by the console or computer that enacts the games’ software. Actions refer to interactions --- the reciprocal configuration and re-configuration of the game software --- performed both by the player and by the hardware
The game software takes on an ambiguous position as an opponent, referee and arbiter, who sometime provides the conflict, but always determines and enforces its outcome. In many cases the game software is responsible for the actions of all opponents and hazards, which will act only according to their designed remit.
Games as text:
Bringing a textual approach to bear provides a mode of connecting digital games, and the actions players take within them, to the wider world.
The role of the games-as-text layer of the model is to situate digital games in wider contexts: the classroom, students’ out-of-school experiences, even world events. The games-as-text layer also fleshes out a spectrum of literacy and learning outcomes that are intimately related to context.
4 Foci: Knowledge about games • The world around the game • ‘Me’ as a game player • Learning through games.
the key role of the ‘knowledge about games’ focus is to bring critical literacy perspectives to bear on digital games and game play; to consider digital games as cultural artefacts, and to also consider the aesthetic and technological forms that have emerged.
Me as a game player: This focus encourages reflexivity about oneself as a games player, and includes attention to issues of value, ideology and identity, and how players are positioned by the game.
The World around the Game: The primary concern of this focus is with the broader local and global contexts where game play takes place, and how the world around the game influences play. Areas for study include the exploration of a range of contexts for play, including physical and virtual spaces; public and private settings; settings shared with others or experienced alone; differences in geographic locations and time zones in online gaming; and how context shapes relationships, interactions and play.
Learning through Games: Studies in this focus are qualitatively different from those in the other three foci, although like all four foci, this focus overlaps with others, with curriculum and pedagogy likely to be spread across a number of areas. This focus is particularly concerned with the capacity of games to teach or impart information through what Bogost (2007) describes as ‘procedural rhetoric’. It includes game supported learning in curriculum areas, both through digital games specifically designed for education, and through the use of commercial, off-the-shelf digital games. Attention here is both on the specific curricular knowledge and understandings fostered through particular games, and on developing players’ increased awareness of meta-cognitive strategies and processes.