ABSTRACT
In recent years, considerable scholarly attention has been devoted to the educational potential of video games (see, for example, Egenfeldt-Nielsen 2007; Van Eck 2010). Games, it has been argued, are intrinsically powerful learning tools, and educators can not only use video games to assist teaching, but also can learn from games to improve teaching methods in general (see, for example, Gee 2003). The approaches to using games in education have been as diverse as games themselves, with off-the-shelf commercial games potentially serving in teaching a multitude of subjects (see, for example, Lacasa 2013). Indeed, it is difficult to even pin down the video game medium in a definition, due to the diversity of genres and subgenres that exist. Some games are essentially traditional board games that have been converted into digital form, to be played on a virtual board against virtual computer-controlled opponents. Others have married board-game-style strategy with the seemingly limitless data-processing capabilities of the computer, resulting in deeply historical strategy games such as the Europa Universalis (2001–2013) series. Others still have more in common with film or theatre (Majewski 2003: 30–51), and focus on the interactive enactment of action-based stories where the player directly controls the actions of the lead character; for instance, a young archaeologist who must – as archaeologists in popular media inevitably do – confront a horde of armed opponents in an exotic location to secure her own survival and uncover ancient mysteries, as in the Tomb Raider (1996–2015) series.
