ABSTRACT
Digital games offer rich and immersive worlds where communication, play, and multimodal literacies of all kinds beckon players to interact and engage. With their mix of text and action, entrancing visuals, and instant feedback, digital games provide a context in which understanding and meaning-making, the representation of self, and interaction with others are core business, central to progress through the game and the satisfactions of play. Virtual worlds and digital games work as collaborative sites where meaning is negotiated and players are engaged in experiential learning of many kinds. Activities typically include planning, problem-solving, decision-making, risk-taking, trial and error, and purposeful communication of many kinds. Research into the promise of digital games for education identifies language learning, for both first and additional languages, as one of the main curriculum areas where games can be most effective, because of such qualities and the integrated and extensive nature of the informal worlds of the game. To participate in such worlds, players need to “read” and understand information on hand, hints, and cues, the rules of the game, and the nature of the genre; what it means and what it takes to play, progress, and win, supported by the wealth of paratexts that surround the game. In addition is the cultivation of cutting-edge skills and lightning fast responses, in forms of play that range from the benign and orderly through to fast-paced, groundbreaking, anarchic, and byzantine. This chapter explores virtual worlds and “serious” games, highlighting the role of digital and multimodal literacies in the creation of meaning for players, and the purposeful and powerful context they provide for communication, interaction, and play.
