research-article

War Video Games: Edu-communicative Platforms to Develop Critical Thinking against War?

Authors:

M. Esther Del-Moral,

Christian RodrÍguez-GonzÁlezAuthors Info & Claims

Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (JOCCH), Volume 13, Issue 4

Article No.: 33, Pages 1 - 13

https://doi.org/10.1145/3404196

Published: 03 December 2020 Publication History

Abstract

War video games recreate war situations with great realism, favoring the immersion of users and making them participants of the sufferings derived from war. While some of them help the players to understand the war, appealing to the hyper-realistic simulation, others are entertainment artifacts that banalize it. This research seeks to determine the edu-communicative potential of war video games, understood as the ability to drive critical thinking towards war. To do this, we adopt a qualitative methodology based on the study of 10 cases, using the WarVG-A (War video game evaluation) instrument to perform the content analysis, based on six dimensions (cognitive, personal-attitudinal, ethical, logical, argumentative, and expressive-communicative) with different indicators and categories. The results of the analysis indicate that these primary games terrorist tactics and historical adaptation, addressing war from a critical approach. Most evidence ethical dilemmas such as child soldiers, the economics of war (arms sales and conflict perpetuation). Economic and geo-political interests are the engines that drive wars, considered inevitable to defend themselves. The stereotypes that abound are gender and ethnic warmongers represented by photorealistic and cinematographic aesthetics. Only four of the selected playful artifacts can identify tools capable of driving critical thinking, inviting players to reflect on war from a more realistic position and emotionally involving them. However, the explicit representation of violence limits its use in school contexts.

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Cited By

Usachova O(2024) Play for Ukraine : wargaming as a resistance pleasure Culture, Theory and Critique10.1080/14735784.2024.237981464:1-2(179-195)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/14735784.2024.2379814
Solanki CMathew D(2023)Games as Inherent Learning Environments: A Thematic Analysis in IndiaDesign in the Era of Industry 4.0, Volume 310.1007/978-981-99-0428-0_65(799-811)Online publication date: 25-Jul-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0428-0_65
Del Moral-Pérez MRodríguez-González C(2022)Oportunidades de los videojuegos bélicos para activar el pensamiento crítico: opiniones de los jugadoresRevista Colombiana de Educación10.17227/rce.num85-12561(165-192)Online publication date: 1-May-2022
https://doi.org/10.17227/rce.num85-12561
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Index Terms

War Video Games: Edu-communicative Platforms to Develop Critical Thinking against War?
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software organization and properties
    1. Contextual software domains
      1. Virtual worlds software
        Interactive games

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Published In

cover image Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage

Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage Volume 13, Issue 4

Special Issue on Culture Games and Regular Papers

December 2020

208 pages

ISSN:1556-4673

EISSN:1556-4711

DOI:10.1145/3441387

Editor:
Franco Niccolucci
VAST-LAB at PIN, University of Florence, Italy

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Copyright © 2020 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 03 December 2020

Accepted: 01 May 2020

Revised: 01 April 2020

Received: 01 December 2019

Published in JOCCH Volume 13, Issue 4

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Cited By

Usachova O(2024) Play for Ukraine : wargaming as a resistance pleasure Culture, Theory and Critique10.1080/14735784.2024.237981464:1-2(179-195)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/14735784.2024.2379814
Solanki CMathew D(2023)Games as Inherent Learning Environments: A Thematic Analysis in IndiaDesign in the Era of Industry 4.0, Volume 310.1007/978-981-99-0428-0_65(799-811)Online publication date: 25-Jul-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0428-0_65
Del Moral-Pérez MRodríguez-González C(2022)Oportunidades de los videojuegos bélicos para activar el pensamiento crítico: opiniones de los jugadoresRevista Colombiana de Educación10.17227/rce.num85-12561(165-192)Online publication date: 1-May-2022
https://doi.org/10.17227/rce.num85-12561
Lepouras GLykourentzou ILiapis A(2020)Introduction to the Special Issue on “Culture Games”Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage 10.1145/342908513:4(1-3)Online publication date: 3-Dec-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3429085

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