ABSTRACT
Alongside this marketing-driven, rhetorically empty promise of gamification, the landscape of game design more broadly continues to evoke a type of play that is rarely inclusive or transformative. Social challenges and awareness of inequities alongside the pandemic (particularly in the United States, where such inequities were noticeably amplified) put traditional educational games into harsh perspective. We outline the issues that were exacerbated during the pandemic with superficial tacking on of game mechanics that have been isolated from their immersive and engaging game worlds into otherwise traditional instruction. This chapter discusses the problematic practices of behaviorist competitive and punitive traditional classroom games that erode motivation and reinforce existing power structures. Similarly, we examine the attempts to reclaim studio titles that often amplify the very narratives of settler representation and colonial discourse embedded in their mechanics. However, an understanding of these challenges works to heighten our awareness of the importance of games such as Model UN and Minecraft that enable constructive and creative play.
