Transcript

A decade of playing the world | Johanna Pirker | TEDxMedUniGraz

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h16waSeCNr0
Video ID: h16waSeCNr0
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Transcriber: Melissa Paredi
Reviewer: Wang Zexing Thank you so much
for this interesting introduction. Um, so I love being here. It's so interesting to see so many exciting people
from from all around the world. Um, and we heard so many interesting
perspectives today. What I want to talk about today is something which is driving me both as an educator,
as a professor, as a scientist, but especially as a game
designer and gamer, because I think we all know this moment
when we are stuck, when we're stuck, at some point when we are looking
for new inspiration, for new motivation, eventually, and especially, those are the moments when I
try to find out what could I do to get this motivation to just drive back, and not only as a game
designer or a professor. I do have those moments,
but also as a gamer. And I found out that this
is my cat playing Diablo. Obviously, I'm just watching. I'm player number two. Um, but in this moment I realized, like, I tended to always play the same games. I play games since I'm a child and I
always loved games like Fable and Gothic and maybe GTA Diablo. But if you look at all those games
or The Witcher nowadays, all of them, um, of all of these games
share similar features where it's mostly blockbuster games. I used to play Triple-A games
over sort of the same genre, a lot of role playing games in that case, which which are sharing
similar experiences. And it's so important if we are driving and looking for new inspiration
to get out of comfort zones. I think we all know that learning
comes from pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone and trying
to learn something new by failing, by fighting maybe things
we are scared to do, but again, eventually find new inspiration
outside something what we are usually usually doing anyways. And this is something. When I was playing, for instance, video games, I thought,
okay, as a game designer as well, I do want to get to know way more games, but I love playing those particular
games most of the time. So what should I do?
So I thought for myself, where do I as a person usually
where would I get my inspiration from? And personally, I also, if I look back, I think I've grown most
of the time when I was traveling, when I would meet people
from all around the world, when I would meet people with so
many different backgrounds and stories. Those were the people who made me grow. Learn what is going on in the world,
what is going right, what is going wrong, and how. From the scientific perspective, what could I do to actually
help them make research which could help in those cases? Um, and especially
also when I'm traveling, there are so many interesting
experiences I can make, so many beautiful landscapes. I can I can look at.
And if you look at travel guides, you always get recommendations. Here are really lovely recipes and things
you can try when you're traveling. There are whole books where
you can travel basically through cooking around the world. You can read so many books written
in the different countries. So I thought, how about I challenge
myself by traveling in a digital way? So I created a way where I
thought games are something which are so important to me,
having those personal experiences, having digital experiences. What if I travel through video games? So the challenge I set myself was called
A Year of Playing the World. This was about ten years ago.
This did not age that well. Um, so it’s a lot of games.
It’s like, almost 200 countries. So I tried to set myself the challenge. I want to find and play games
from every country in the world. And this was something which did,
um, help me in so many different ways. Um, because first of all,
I found an entirely different challenge. How would I find those games? And I would ask you now,
if you think for yourself, um, if I would ask you the question, if I want to play one game which was
developed in the country you live or you come from,
which game should I play? This was the question I was asking. Do you know this from
your countries? Most people don't. Interesting isn't it? If I would ask you, for instance. Do you think of your favorite games? What are the countries
those games have been developed in? Of your favorite game? A game you might have spent hours. Dozens of hours. Hundreds of hours. Do you know where your games come from? Do you know, actually,
who developed those games? Interesting. Often we don't. I also myself, I was very, very confused at this moment when I
realized that the people I would ask and also myself, I know so
little about the games I'm playing. We know a lot about about the books. We know where the authors are coming
from, who are the authors? We know often about
the directors in movies, but sometimes we know
a little about the games. This was already the first
interesting thing I found. The second thing when I then reached
out further, um, a little bit deeper. So I thought, okay, if the general
gamers don't know this information and who could I ask? So I
reached out to developer communities. So in Austin we have, for instance, lovely communities trying to bring
together game developers in Austria. And pretty much every country
has a community like this, or events for game developers, where you then develop a game
within a night or two, um, just to bring together people. So I reached out to the different
communities all around the world. And one thing which was really,
really, really wonderful, I met so many interesting people,
some of them also then in real life, who were putting forward
the game development communities in their respective countries. And the nicest thing I
found was the stories they told me about the development. Um, if you, for instance, start googling for games
for countries like Pakistan or if you look for country games develop
or games with references to Iraq or Iran, often you will not find the games
developed in those countries, but rather news headlines of negative headlines about
games being set in those countries. So this is not what what I was aiming for. So when I reached out to the people, they told me so many interesting
stories about the games being developed and how they were developed
on the top right. For instance, you see, you see me playing the game from Peru
in Peru at Machu Picchu. And when I talked to the people there,
they already told me, um, everything about the development history
of game development in Peru. So this all started,
for instance, with, uh, um, with games being back then only
translated in a few languages. And in order to make it
translated to their people, a couple of Peruvian hackers came together and starting hacking modding the games, basically to add
their language to the games so that their people
can play the games as well to make it accessible to everyone. And by doing so, they also
added eventually another level, another game element, and all of a sudden
were game developers themselves. So this is sort of how game development
started, for instance, in Peru. And this was so interesting
to learn about those histories and those stories about the communities. When we now look a little bit closer
into the games I found you see also. Is it a typical blockbuster
Triple-A games, you know, from the lists? Interestingly, it's not. So when I started asking people
about this one game they should recommend from the countries, especially also
people from the developer communities. It was often games which were really
outstanding in representing the country, representing very strong characters,
um, telling very personal stories, telling stories from
the stories from the country. And for this talk,
I brought three major, um, findings I had during this project, which then also shaped the way I do
my research on learning environments, because games can be such a fantastic
source to identify new ways for motivating people to do all the things which are outside of entertainment,
such as education. And you will be surprised how
many interesting game elements can be found within games,
especially in games, the games I found, which then can inspire new ways
of teaching, new ways of um, um, of therapy and so on. Um, so the three main findings I had, um, that the games that stuck out
and which were recommended by the people, were often games with a strong
cultural or historical setting and letting me again,
like I mentioned before, travel into this country or travel back
in time to have experiences. We call it immersion. Immerse ourselves in experiences
which might not be possible otherwise. The second one was games
as a window into other perspectives. I think we heard
quite often that something which we really need to learn
these days is also understanding different perspectives. Empathy and games are a window doing so because I can take the role of someone
else through a video game. In a movie, I will be always
this person sitting in front of the TV and watching a documentary and say,
wow, this is a sad experience. So this is an interesting experience. However, in a game I am the person
of the documentary. And third, there are so many interesting
elements, especially in indie games, which is the opposite of those triple
a world where games can innovate, whether it's through game
mechanics or through tech. So let's look at some examples. Um, so when I asked
the people from Sweden, Sweden is really known
for fantastic triple A industry. So many probably of your favorite
titles are coming from Sweden. However, the game which was recommended
is called a Year walk. A year walk, um is a lovely indie game,
probably 1 or 2 hour experience, um, which tells you about
the folklore of Sweden. In this, um, images, we see a couple
of screenshots and what you see. For instance, in the middle,
those are the my links, which is, uh, a small little concept of this folklore which I'm being taught also in form
of this dictionary and through this game and learn what this year
walk experience is all about. So about. I'm not giving away spoilers
now. I really recommend playing this, but I learned so much about this cultural
aspect by playing this game. Um, the second game, which is on
the slide, is this War of Mine. Poland is also known for so
many triple A experiences. However, the game which was recommended
is called This War of Mine A War Game. However, you're not the typical war hero. You see the other side of the war. You're a civilian and you
just try to survive. And the game is all about
making very difficult decisions. This is a super power of video games. This game mechanic that you are forced
to make decisions yourself, which again makes you
learn and makes you think. This is also a mechanic, which we then reused for a lot
of educational games where we want to make people think about
the decisions they're making. The second one would be this idea
that you take, um, to see the world through other eyes. Is um, and one game which I really
love to talk about is called Path Out. Path out is actually
an Austrian production, but it tells the story of a Syrian refugee who came to 2014 to Austria, Abdullah. And he shared his story not
through a movie, not through a book, but they created a video
game where you are Abdullah, and you experience what it
means to escape civil war from Syria and try to come to Austria. And this is so powerful to learn
about those other perspectives. And the third example
would be the element of innovation. Most surprised I was when I
learned that the game of France, also a country which also a lot
of Ubisoft productions are coming from, are not the big blockbusters we usually
know from the top ten list, but it was a game called alone
in the dark, very old one from 1992, but it was stuck to the peoples and
especially the developers had in France because it was so known
for the innovation. This game was the first
survival horror game, and was the so important
for many other games in this genre, and it also innovated
in terms of graphics. So what you see in those slides,
those cinematic, atmospheric characters, this was super
innovative back then, also from a technological point of view. So you will find so much innovation
in video games, in video game mechanics, which we then can reuse for so
many other interesting aspects. So for instance, letting
people experience other point of views through virtual
reality technologies, for instance, and use game mechanics to have them
make decisions, to interact and to learn. But what I also found,
and this is very unfortunate, is that we don't treat
our games really well. So what I also found was that
games are still not seen as cultural or artistic goods, which are
supposed to be preserved and archived. So many of the games I wanted
to play and I got recommended, I was not able to find or play anymore. And this is something
which I find such a pity, because if we look at games
with those cultural stories, backgrounds, the artistic aspects, whether it's the music or the 2D 3D
art and the coming together artistic and cultural goods, and we would need
to also make sure that they are included, like art, like books into our museums,
be archived, be conserved. So if I want to summarize,
I just want to encourage, encourage you. Like I said in the beginning, no matter
what you're doing, just step outside of your comfort zone like I
did through my gaming experience, which then really enriched
not only my gaming world, but actually my whole research play. Eventually, games or things,
you do a little bit more awareness. Look who were the people behind it. Why were those things being developed
or written or created? Um, and also don't rely on the first
search results on Google or nowadays ChatGPT try to do
research a little bit deeper. Talk to the people. This is where the most
interesting experiences come from. And then, if I may say so, I think there's so much potential
in all your fields, in video games and in so many interesting, diverse range of video
games we are having these days. So with that, thank you so much and I hope you find some interesting games
to play in this list. [Applause]