Mia Consalvo's 2011 GDC talk for the Game Education Summit. How can disciplines like religion, history, philosophy and literature make a game development program stronger? And how can games--both the study of them as well as their creation-- make such fields more relevant to contemporary society? This talk takes as a given that you've built a successful program at your college or university. You have plenty of majors with excellent GPAs, good faculty and professional advisors, and a relevant curriculum. You've distinguished and built room for programming, art, production and design into your degree (or some subset), and students are getting jobs in the industry upon graduation. What comes next? How can a game development program go from good to great? The answer lies outside of game development classes, in more distant parts of the university such as the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Should these classes be dismissed? How are they relevant to a decent game development major or education? In this talk, Mia will argue for the essential part that they can play in a quality game development program.

1. Humanities Unlocked:The Value of Liberal Artsfor your Game Design Program Mia Consalvo MIT @miaC

2. first a word about advising...

8. TCOM Day Alumni Panel

9. CI-H/HASS-D lotteries

14. Humanities Grants

16. 4 Case Studies Literature, Foreign Languages, Philosophy and Classics What game design programs can learn from the humanities What game design can contribute to the humanities

17. Case Study 1: Philosophy

18. Ethical theories Virtue Ethics Developing good habits of character, such as benevolence Utilitarianism (consequentialism: an action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more favorable than unfavorable) Utilitarianism adds “to everyone”

19. More theories Duty Theory Base morality on specific, foundational principles of obligation. Non-consequentialist—principles are obligatory, irrespective of consequences that might follow from our actions.

20. How do players play? “I always seem to go good. I can go evil if I force myself to be evil—I really have to force myself to do it, it never comes naturally to me” “I generally do good ‘cause it’s easier. ‘Cause that’s how I was raised. Like, for example, it’s easier to be good, ‘cause that’s how you’re trained. ... as a person, but you translate that into gamer world, almost innately.”

21. Evil or just selfish? “I was trying to do kind of ‘evil-ish’ things, but when I went into ‘game autopilot’ mode, I would naturally make the good guy choices. And I started to get ‘renowned’ back—good guy points, essentially—and I was like ‘no, I don’t want to do this! Stop it!’” “the good guy always wins, the bad guy never wins. It’s the rules. If it’s Batman versus Joker, Batman always wins.”

22. Breaking a contract

27. Philosophy

28. Case Study 2: Foreign Languages

30. Western otaku Games lead to interest in culture, language Leads to seeking new experiences For some, getting past stereotypes

32. Encountering the ‘other’ Dani: “Cause she [friend Aiko] would, she wasn’t afraid to talk to us about things and she wanted to know about our culture too and it was really nice having really long conversations with her about… everything. So, that was invaluable to me, as far as learning about culture. Was actually talking to somebody, someone that was outgoing enough to not, you know, shy away from nitty gritty subjects like that.”

33. Traveling, Curiosity Moti: “I’m not really done with Japan and I’d like to go back again at some point” Dan: “…going over this summer in July to conduct fieldwork”

34. The Cosmopolitan Western Otaku Spectrum of interests, from banal consumption to deeper engagements, levels of openness Comfort with what is distant as well as the familiar Potential for surface interest; reinforcing stereotypes; return of Orientalism

45. Languages Games can inspire us to learn new languages, and about new cultures Learning languages can help us appreciate more games, understand cultural differences, and can even lead to new hobbies, businesses, and the creation of new markets

46. Case Study 3: Classics

55. Procedural adaptation Not a translation, but a purposive attempt to identify dominant themes and meanings in Sophocles and adapt those to a procedural system

56. Classics

57. Classics

58. Case Study 4: Literature

63. Edith Newbold Jones (Wharton) 1862-1937 Pulitzer Prize for Literature, 1921 Age of Innocence House of Mirth Custom of the Country

64. False Dawn, 1924 “Mr. Raycie was a monumental man. His extent in height, width and thickness was so nearly the same that whichever way he turned one had an almost equally broad view of him…”

65. The Old Maid, 1924 “Nothing had ever been changed in the room which, even as a bride, she had planned to modernize. …”

66. Jane Austen wrote about how society was a social game

68. Edith Wharton wrote instead about the weight of society on individuals, and our need to remain part of the tribe, despite our own ambitions.

69. Current social games <click>

70. Meaningful interactions Must all interactions simply be positive? How do tribal norms regulate us… how can we think about that relative to game design Are we happiest when inside the group, at the cost of our own individuality or particular actions? What are the benefits (as well as drawbacks) of sticking with the tribe

72. Revisiting value

73. Revisiting advising

74. Revisiting the Humanities

75. Thank you! @miaC