The Economist
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The science of language, community, and MMORPGs
Back in August, Massively wrote a little post about Swedish research on MMOs and language learning. That article provoked me, a gamer and teacher of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL), to hunt down the original research and talk directly to the researchers, Dr. Liss Kerstin Sylvén from the University of Gothenburg and Dr. Pia Sundqvist from Karlstad University, to better understand their research and findings. Note that we'll be talking here about games and language learning specifically, not other forms of game-related education. Also, Sylvén and Sundqvist don't consider themselves "gamers." Sundqvist remembers Pac-Man as her first game, both admit to playing Angry Birds on their cell phones, and Sundqvist is "allowed" to sometimes watch her 17-year-old son play League of Legends. I find this interesting because they are non-gamers who seriously consider games capable of being educational without specifically being developed to do so. This isn't a simple merger of a hobby with work; this is work in a field of interest that's still being explored.
The Economist examines 'recession-proof' games industry
Although much of the information contained could be classified as "duh" (or in few cases: "wha?") to our loyal readers, The Economist has a piece about how "recession-proof" the video game industry is. Clearly, The Economist is looking at a very macro level when it calls the industry "recession proof," because given recent events we'd be more comfortable if the industry had been classified as "recession resistant."The magazine notes that the global sales of console hardware and software are expected to reach $50 billion this year. Regurgitating NPD data from October, the mag points out that sales in the US totaled $697 million, which is a 35% increase from the previous year (November wasn't too bad either). The question, of course, is whether the industry can keep it up if things get worse.Update: We contacted NPD to find out the specific increase in November. The group let us know that software sales were $1.45 billion during the month, up 11% from the prior November.
The Economist on games and profit
Newsmagazine The Economist ran an article titled "Playing for profit" about using video game technology to increase productivity in the workplace. The article -- which was a sort of book report on "Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Business" by David Edery and Ethan Mollick -- looked to trends such as game mods and web-based-games-as-marketing-tools for inspiration, but special emphasis was placed on MMOs, including World of Warcaft and EVE Online. Believe it or not, the WoW feature that was heralded by the writer was the soul-crushing grind! Or rather, the grind was compared to the sorts of tasks that your average office worker has to sit through each day. WoW provides a context -- the leveling system and other rewards -- that (supposedly) makes the grind worth the trouble. Companies should emulate that, the article says.EVE, on the other hand, was used to demonstrate what not to do. That's pretty ironic, since The Economist's editorial stance is all about economic and societal openness! Regardless, the author pointed to the famous incident in which a CCP employee provided inside help to a corporation at war, using it as an example of the dangers of game-playing in a business environment.
The Economist chats up the Wii's potential
International news magazine The Economist is not where we expected to find the Wii. After all, The Economist is where we find out about the invisible rich in the U.K. and Macedonia's consideration for membership in the European Union. It's serious news and our beloved Wii is, after all, about serious fun. But if Nintendo succeeds with the their plan for the new console, it will affect a global market that will only grow with that success, and when it's big business news, The Economist is there. The quick look over Nintendo's goals for the Wii -- and how they compare to the DS - offers those of us who live and breathe gaming daily an interesting look from the outside of the market. But the long and short of it is that Nintendo doesn't see the point of being crowned king of a shrinking market when the whole world is out there. And if their old-but-new viral marketing (hey, try this!) strategy works, the gaming market will be stretched, perhaps even broken wide open. And everyone is watching to see what happens. In that, dear readers, we are not alone.[Thanks, Special_K!]
