Learning through Game Modding

Learning through Game Modding
Jared O'Leary
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In this episode I unpack El-Nasr and Smith’s (2006) publication titled “Learning through game modding,” which describes two case studies on modifying video games to learn software development and design, as well as programming, artistic, and video game concepts.

  • Welcome back to another episode of the

    CSK8 podcast my name is Jared O'Leary as

    you may have noticed by now every single

    week it's going to alternate between an

    interview and unpacking scholarship and

    this week I'm gonna start a little mini

    series on modding today's episode is

    going to be on some practical

    implications of modding or remix in a

    video game and then two weeks from now

    we're going to have an episode that

    dives deeper into what mod culture is

    and two weeks after that we're going to

    take a look at a study that looks at the

    potential motivations and implications

    of people who engage in modding now if

    you don't know what modding is I will

    talk about it in this episode and if you

    want to learn more about it outside of

    the three episodes that I'm a record on

    this you can actually take a look at

    chapter two in my dissertation which I

    will link to in the show notes in that

    chapter it has a summary of what mod

    culture is and kind of points to some

    more scholarship that I won't be

    discussing today so today's article is

    titled learning through game modding it

    is by Maggie

    Nesser and Brian Smith and as always

    apologies if I ever mispronounce any

    names and as a friendly reminder you can

    find links to google scholar profiles in

    the show notes so you can find out more

    scholarship by these authors and you can

    also take a look at the this actual

    publication if you're interested in

    reading it okay so here's the abstract

    quote there has been a recent increase

    in the number of game environments or

    engines that allow users to customize

    their gaming experiences by building and

    expanding game behavior this article

    describes the use of modifying or

    modding existing games as a means to

    learn computer science mathematics

    physics and aesthetic principles we

    described two exploratory case studies

    of game modding in classroom settings to

    illustrate skills learned by students as

    a result of modding existing games we

    also discuss the benefits of learning

    computer science skills example 3d

    graphics and mathematics event based

    programming software engineering etc

    through large design projects and how

    game design motivates students to

    acquire and apply these skills we

    describe our use of multiple game

    modding environments in our classes in

    addition we describe how different

    engines can be used to focus students on

    the acquisition of particular skills and

    concepts in quote however to summarize

    this study in one sentence I

    say this article describes two case

    studies on modifying video games to

    learn software development and design as

    well as programming artistic and video

    game concepts the authors begin by

    talking about some of the benefits of

    modding in particularly they talk about

    him instead of creating a program or a

    video game from scratch modding can

    actually save a lot of time cost and

    expertise in particular they talk about

    how a video game is typically made by a

    large number of individuals working

    together on a project however when

    you're modding you can actually build

    off of their efforts is essentially

    standing on the shoulders of giants to

    just kind of customize a game to make it

    work in the way that you want rather

    than having to go through and be like

    okay I need to record all the sounds and

    I need to develop all the characters and

    I need to program all the characters so

    that they have fluid movement and

    responsive player controls etc so

    instead of having to do that kind of

    tedious stuff you can actually augment

    those things that other people have

    already created in addition there's a

    quote on page 2 that says quote since

    modding begins with popular proven game

    concepts the resulting variations are

    more likely to resemble games that

    players modders are accustomed to than

    if they had to build entire game

    infrastructures on their own unquote I

    think that's a really important quote to

    take into consideration to kind of

    situate this in to a k-12 classroom

    setting think of modding as remix in a

    project in scratch so somebody else has

    created something in scratch and you go

    into it and you're going to vary it in

    some way so you're going to change the

    code you might change some of the

    sprites or some of the sounds and things

    like that and if you're not using

    scratch think of it as just taking any

    kind of a video game or program and you

    are making it do something that it

    wasn't originally intended to do so an

    example that I brought up multiple times

    is i modded the game minecraft to put

    our dogs in it in to make quest for my

    wife and some items that I know that she

    would like and whatnot and rather than

    having to recreate to the entire game

    minecraft from scratch on my own all I

    had to do was go into the actual game

    files and kind of add in my own code

    that augmented it in a way that I found

    personally meaningful so on page 2 the

    author's talk about how

    by modifying existing videogames

    students or kids can learn by design so

    here's a quote on page to quote during

    the design process skills such as

    analysis synthesis evaluation and

    revision must be used providing

    opportunities for learning content and

    metacognitive skills such as planning

    and monitoring students can receive

    ongoing feedback from peers and experts

    when constructing working artifacts

    feedback also comes during the process

    of construction as students work to

    understand how and why their designs

    fail can be optimized and so on finally

    real design problems have multiple

    solutions allowing students to see and

    evaluate alternatives in quote now I

    think there are several really excellent

    points in in that particular quote right

    there now one of the things that I

    really love about working with computers

    in programming is if you have a platform

    that allows you to modify something and

    you can instantly see the results it

    gives you instantaneous feedback so for

    example if you change a variable and

    scratch while the program is running

    you'll immediately see maybe the

    character get faster or slower or

    something like that this makes it really

    easy to modify a program and kind of

    learn from experimentation and potential

    failures and ways to optimize some

    things however if you're working in some

    kind of environment that requires you to

    compile a program that can take a long

    time so even just modifying like one

    variable like changing the speed from

    five to ten and then hitting that

    compile button it might take several

    minutes and then you'll test it out and

    go oh well that failed and then you go

    back and modify the variable again and

    change it from like five to seven and

    then you have to hit compile and it's

    just kind of a waste of time so if you

    have a platform that allows you to see

    instantaneous results in whatever it is

    that you're modifying I highly recommend

    using that when re mixing or modifying a

    program and a little bit further in the

    introduction the authors mentioned that

    game design in particular it can be very

    motivating for students for example on

    page three here's a quote students

    enrolled in experimental computer

    science classes that use game design

    averaged higher grades than control

    classrooms

    additionally 88% of the game students

    continued in the major compared to 47%

    for the control groups combining

    constructionist pedagogy with game

    designs

    seems to help some students dig deeper

    into computer science fundamentals and

    quote so this is with undergraduate

    students enrolled in a computer science

    program they found significant

    difference between people who modified

    video games or rather engaged in game

    design and people who did not I'm a

    little bit skeptical as those results

    I'm kind of curious like how the design

    of the study was but I just haven't read

    it just seeing those differences it's

    pretty drastic and makes me go well

    maybe there's another reason for that

    but that's no knock on the authors that

    they're citing I'm sure it's a good

    study and again the authors bring up

    that while these studies are great and

    it shows that students might be really

    engaged in video game design however

    there's a significant amount of time

    cost and expertise that can be

    significant barriers when trying to

    engage in video game design so what they

    recommend is an alternative which is

    rather than creating a video game from

    scratch not in scratch but from scratch

    from nothing actually going in to an

    existing one or a semi completed one and

    modifying that to create something new

    now one of the interesting things that

    they point out is that modding practices

    are engaged with by a lot of people in

    the video game world usually for leisure

    however what's interesting about mod

    culture is that a lot of modders end up

    getting hired by video game companies so

    a modder might remix a game or change it

    and add in some new content and it could

    get the attention of that developer and

    sometimes those the developers will

    actually reach out to the modders and

    offer them contracts to come work for

    them there's actually been several

    different studies on how mod culture and

    modding practices are often viewed as

    kind of like a pipeline into the video

    game industry however again this is also

    something that can just be done in

    leisure for fun so the first case study

    is actually on high school students who

    are in Pennsylvania in a school and

    there are 20 students who are rolled in

    an IT class and they have three

    consecutive days with three hours each

    day to work on the game money and the

    mods that they actually worked on most

    for the video game Warcraft 3 now

    Warcraft 3 is a real-time strategy game

    where it's you versus enemies and you're

    going to basically build up a base

    recruit a bunch of soldiers and then

    you're going to use those soldiers to

    attack an enemy or enemies I honestly

    forget if this was a multiplayer game or

    not I played this at least a decade or

    two ago however what's really

    interesting is the students who modded

    this game actually turned it into games

    like a football game or a Tetris style

    game or whatever so through modding

    practices is they actually completely

    change not only how the game looked but

    the actual gameplay itself and what the

    overall purpose of a particular game was

    now an interesting point that is made on

    page 7 is that students did not simply

    go through a lesson that show them how

    to do everything and then they just kind

    of create their own variations upon that

    they actually talked about how these

    students learned how to do the mods by

    yes consulting instructors but also

    consulting web resources such as like

    message boards and tutorials that

    existed outside of the classroom itself

    and I think this is a really important

    thing to note that if you are going to

    engage in any kind of modding practices

    I highly recommend having a an abundance

    of resources that kind of can guide

    students in different directions and

    these can be resources that you create

    or curate so for example when I engaged

    in modding practices in the k-8 classes

    that I worked with I had a bunch of

    tutorials that kind of showed you how to

    do things for some platforms but then in

    other platforms

    I simply had in comments so like in

    scratch I might have had a completed

    project but I included comments in there

    that showed what each chunk or function

    of code would do and then I'd always end

    those comments with questions that would

    encourage further modifications so for

    example if a comment was discussing how

    player controls work at the end I would

    say how would you make it so this player

    moved faster or slower or how would you

    make it so that this player move like

    they were on the moon or swimming

    underwater etc so getting kids to think

    through different ways that can modify

    things in order to augment the game in a

    new way that wasn't originally intended

    now the second case study that is in

    this particular publication is on 35

    undergraduate students from Pennsylvania

    State University who are in the

    department of computer science and

    engineering and School of Information

    sciences and technology that is

    the longest school title I've ever heard

    I think they should win an award now in

    this particular class students worked in

    groups of five to develop a game of

    their choice using any of the engines

    that they learned in the first half of a

    semester now one of the interesting best

    things that they point out in this

    particular case study is they talk about

    how students didn't have a great

    knowledge of basic geometry in vectors

    so when they were trying to do something

    in the game and we're kind of stuck

    because of their lack of understanding

    on it the instructors actually gave some

    lectures to kind of help understand

    those concepts and then afterwards

    students reported that they understood

    the content better and could apply it in

    their games now the reason why I point

    this out is because it's interesting

    that using a constructionist process

    where you're supposed to kind of like

    learn by creating something but they're

    also combining it with direct

    instruction now I actually mentioned in

    a podcast that's going to release in a

    couple of weeks in an interview with

    John Stapleton that I don't think direct

    instruction should be avoided at all

    cost in favor of more progressive

    approaches that are in alignment with

    constructivism or constructionism

    however I do think that it needs to be

    limited so it's not like okay we're

    gonna lecture for 90% of the class and

    then the last 10% you're actually gonna

    create something so there needs to be

    some kind of a balance between active

    creation and then kind of like the

    passive receiving of information now

    that being said I also want to point out

    that if you are engaging in

    constructionist practices and you're

    saying hey here's a resource that can

    help you out just because you're not the

    one who's giving the lecture they're

    still technically getting direct

    instruction from the resource that you

    were providing to them so that's kind of

    to provide a little counter-argument to

    myself on that note one of the really

    interesting things that they mentioned

    on page 14 is quote we deduced that

    students didn't understand the

    implication of these concepts until they

    applied them in a complex and relatively

    large scale project in quote in other

    words this is going back to what I

    mentioned before in a previous podcast

    about situated learning you need to

    learn some kind of a concept or practice

    or understanding within a moment where

    you actually apply that understanding

    otherwise it's decontextualized with

    what you're going to need it for so one

    of the famous examples that a lot of

    people bring up is

    math classes and I'm sure many people

    listening can reminisce and think about

    how they might have had a similar

    experience where it's like okay I'm

    learning how to solve all these

    equations but I don't know when I'm

    actually ever going to use these and

    from what I have heard from math

    educators is that that they kind of get

    a bad rap and things have changed in

    math education so it's more situated

    within something useful however

    unfortunately it still has the

    reputation of being decontextualized

    from useful applications so that being

    said this kind of also reinforces the

    idea that you don't need to sit there

    and lecture on something out of context

    but if instead you give an environment

    where kids are trying to apply their

    understandings in a situation where it's

    needed then that can actually lead to a

    better understanding of that concept or

    practice now an interesting finding out

    of this second case study is they

    actually compared how interested

    students were in an assignment where

    they were kind of had to design a video

    game environment and move a character

    around versus a second type of

    assignment where students had to modify

    an existing video game the Unreal

    Tournament video game and what they

    found is 46.2% of people who engaged in

    the first example where they are

    developing a an environment and moving

    the character enjoyed that process or

    were interested in it however eighty

    eight point four percent of people were

    engaged or interested in the Unreal

    Tournament example where they were

    modifying an existing video game so this

    demonstrates that this could be a highly

    motivating experience for some kids so

    the discussion for this particular study

    leads to four different categories the

    categories are software development and

    design programming concepts artistic

    concepts and game concepts so those are

    the four categories of skills and

    concepts as students engage in so let me

    unpack them so this is on page 17 when

    engaging in game design or modification

    students will engage in software

    development and design that is comprised

    of teamwork building critiques and

    reflections on other's works project

    scheduling project management iterations

    and refinement and prototyping so all

    those things that can be really helpful

    for any kind of content area just not

    just computer science in general however

    for the computer programming concepts

    that are learned

    they mentioned that students learn

    threading and event based programming

    object-oriented programming component

    based development and software patterns

    and then under the artistic concepts

    they mentioned that when engaging in

    game modding that students learn

    lighting effects architecture design and

    character design and then under the game

    concepts they mentioned that students

    learn game design game mechanics and

    balancing game aesthetics and gameplay

    so in other words to kind of summarize

    the main gist of this when you're

    engaging in video game modification

    practices one students might be very

    motivated with by this if they are

    interested in video games too they can

    learn a lot of things that are relevant

    not only into computer science but to

    other areas areas as well and as you'll

    hear in follow-up episodes were a kind

    of unpack mod culture some more it's not

    just in visual art concepts but there's

    also like sound PAC mods where people

    modify sounds and there's all sorts of

    other domains that this can potentially

    connect with this also allows students

    to have a very quick onboarding into

    creating something that can be

    interesting to them so rather than

    having to go from a blank page in an IDE

    create something over many months to

    just make it so that a character can

    like walk forward and backwards you can

    start with an already existing game that

    is already functioning or maybe even

    partially functioning and then adding in

    new things that make it do something

    different and this can be done as early

    as like kindergarten if you were to

    let's say you scratch jr. you could if

    using like an iPad or some kind of

    device where you can share your projects

    you could share an existing project with

    kids and just ask them to change it or

    even if you don't have that ability you

    can simply say okay kids for the first

    half of the class you're going to work

    on this project and you're then going to

    pass it to a neighbor on the second half

    of the class and they're going to add to

    it or modify it in some way and then at

    the very end we're going to talk about

    what you did and what you were able to

    do with another person's project so

    that's kind of an example of how you can

    use this in kindergarten and above now

    in the curriculum that I created for the

    kids that I work with I had a lot of

    examples of completed or Simic

    completed projects and again one of the

    important things that I want to

    emphasize is that I included a bunch of

    comments and questions that really kind

    of guided kids to understand what they

    could potentially do by experimenting

    with changing the variables or adding in

    new sets of code inside of the various

    algorithms they were modifying so if you

    haven't tried game modding yet or just

    modding or remix inning in general I

    highly recommend experimenting with it

    in some of your projects so whether it's

    giving them a completed project and

    having them read the comments and

    questions and figure out what they can

    do or maybe even giving them a completed

    project and asking them to create the

    comments that explain how this project

    works or maybe giving them a semi

    completed project that's like well the

    character moves but the second player

    doesn't move so how can you modify this

    game to make it so the second player

    moves and then turn it into some kind of

    a game of your choice

    so those are some different options for

    you now I do have some lingering

    questions or thoughts for this

    particular study so one of my lingering

    questions when going through this

    article is I wonder why do some coding

    platforms encourage modding or remix

    practices kind of like scratch which is

    community base and it's super easy to

    just click a button and then you've

    remixed somebody else's project while

    other platforms do not afford such

    possibilities I'm wondering if there's a

    specific reason why people are choosing

    to not encourage or enable such

    practices because there is a lot of

    scholarship out there on how modding can

    be very motivating or can be a really

    great opportunity to learn computer

    science and other disciplinary concepts

    and practices as demonstrated in this

    particular study so a second lingering

    question that I have is if modding

    practices are so great why not do them

    all the time in other words at what

    point should we encourage developing

    something from a blank slate instead of

    modding as existing code

    well I personally know as somebody who's

    engaged in modding practices and there's

    somebody who's facilitated modding

    practices with elementary and middle

    school kids I know that this can be a

    very beneficial thing but I also know

    that it can be really beneficial to

    start from a blank page and learn

    through those processes of thinking

    through ok if I want to make a character

    do X Y & Z I need

    creates functions that do XY and Z so

    how do I start creating those functions

    and how are they going to all kind of

    work into interdependently and

    interconnected lis however I know that

    can also be very frustrating for kids so

    if if there's any recommendation that I

    can give is rather than picking one end

    of the spectrum or the other in terms of

    two mod or not two mod I would say give

    both options and everything in between

    so you can be like hey kids if you're

    interested in modding you can do that as

    long as you're not just sitting there

    and changing colors of things but

    actually changing the code cool awesome

    but if you'd rather create something

    from a blank page and go from there

    awesome you can do that too now to kind

    of argue with that approach I have heard

    from several software engineers or

    computer programmers who say you almost

    never start anything from a blank page

    you're almost always starting from what

    other people have already done so

    modding practices are very common even

    outside of the game world so I hope that

    introduction to modding practices

    through this particular study was useful

    for to you the next two unpacking

    scholarship episodes will kind of unpack

    mod culture a little bit more however

    next week is going to be an interview

    just as a friendly reminder if you want

    to actually read the entire paper you

    can find that in the show notes and

    that's available at jared O'Leary comm

    and just click on the CSKA podcast you

    should also be able to find it in your

    podcast app by clicking the link below

    and it'll take you directly to these

    show notes if you haven't done so

    already I would love it if you could

    share this with somebody else into the

    broader community that would mean a lot

    to me because I'm just trying to create

    a bunch of free resources that help out

    other educators and with that I want to

    thank you so much for listening to this

    episode and I hope you look forward to

    next week's interview

Article

El-Nasr, M. S., & Smith, B. K. (2006). Learning Through Game Modding. ACM Computers in Entertainment, 4(1), 1–20.

Abstract

“There has been a recent increase in the number of game environments or engines that allow users to customize their gaming experiences by building and expanding game behavior. This article describes the use of modifying, or modding, existing games as a means to learn computer science, mathematics, physics, and aesthetic principles. We describe two exploratory case studies of game modding in classroom settings to illustrate skills learned by students as a result of modding existing games. We also discuss the benefits of learning computer sciences skills (e.g., 3D graphics/mathematics, event-based programming, software engineering, etc.) through large design projects and how game design motivates students to acquire and apply these skills. We describe our use of multiple game modding environments in our classes. In addition, we describe how different engines can be used to focus students on the acquisition of particular skills and concepts.”

Author Keywords

Experimentation, design, games and education, game engines and classrooms, learning and design.

My One Sentence Summary

This article describes two case studies on modifying video games to learn software development and design, as well as programming, artistic, and video game concepts.

Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

  • Why do some coding platforms encourage modding or remix practices while others do not afford such possibilities?

  • If modding practices are so great, why not do them all the time? In other words, at what point should we encourage developing something from a blank screen instead of modifying existing code?

Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

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Unpacking ScholarshipJared O'LearyModding || remixing, Video gamesComment