Do you think it's possible to create a FUN educational game?

[MrBuzzKill]

By "educational" I mean "something that adds to your knowledge or skill in the real world".

To be honest, I'm hard-pressed to think of a single example of a game that's educational as well as genuinely fun to play. Aside from games that can teach about history indirectly (Civilization and the like), and typing games (where you race against the clock, monsters, or other players by typing correctly as fast as you can), nothing really comes to mind.

Videogames have existed for more than 60 years. Surely, by now, someone would've come out with a game that was fun and educational? Perhaps an educational RPG, even? Or is it somehow next to impossible to combine these two qualities?

 

[Vic]

 

[NecroLord]

Doom.
It teaches you how to deal with a demonic invasion.

 

[Dadd]

Games can be good for engaging abstract thinking, strategic planning, etc. but they're inefficient for teaching things like history. You'd learn much more on history by reading books, researching sources and so on. Still games can be useful for getting people interested in new subjects.

 

[Zlaja]

Only if you include tits and ass in it.

 

[JarlFrank]

Europa Barbarorum is the best history teacher, it even cites academic literature and primary sources on the ancient world in its flavor texts and depicts the ancient world with as much historical accuracy as is possible for a game.

 

[Alphons]

 

[JarlFrank]

AoE2's campaigns made me interested in medieval history as a kid, now I got a medieval history degree lol

The campaigns were not 100% historically correct (not to mention the gameplay) but they make you care about historical characters and present the scenarios in a compelling way.

I was incredibly disappointed when AoE3 had some stupid fantasy campaign instead of actual history.

 

[udm]

I learned about society, political ideologies, and economics from Fallout.

System Shock 2 taught me hard sci-fi concepts, which helped me develop an appreciation for physics (which was then killed off by an absolutely shitty teacher).

Master of Orion gave me rudimentary knowledge of space and celestial objects.

Thief taught me how to analyse multiple movement patterns in 3d space, even if my motor skills are shit.

Baldur's Gate helped me build up my vocabulary and understanding of grammar conventions.

Adventure games, from King's Quest to Grim Fandango, taught me to analyse every object in detail and think out of the box.

I'd say I learned a ton from games.

EDIT: Also, back when paperback manuals were a thing, I'd spend a lot of time reading them, going through the fluff. That helped me with writing essays.

 

[JarlFrank]

Baldur's Gate helped me build up my vocabulary and understanding of grammar conventions.

Without the pirated English versions of RPGs my Romanian pal gave me back during our teenage years, I would never have become as proficient at the language as I am now. They taught me better than any teacher at school.

 

[fork]

Doom.
It teaches you how to deal with a demonic invasion.

Apparently not enough people played Doom then.

 

[fork]

There's also the entire sim genre. Pilots of all kinds of vehicles use sims to train for the real thing. Many of the games we get are somewhat gamified, i.e. dumbed down, but some aren't and both types can be fun. There are gamers who are now professional racing drivers, aircraft and drone pilots train on simulators, most operators of heavy machinery train on simulators etc.

 

[Melcar]

Reader Rabbit!

 

[Derringer]

We played educational apple and dos games in elementry school so they tried to an extent, if you're not talking about sims or the typical logic puzzles in video games.

 

[kangaxx]

Absolutely. My dad had a fun word game on his VaxMate back in the day (similar to Hangman, animal themed from memory). Me and my brothers used it to improve our spelling as kids, even learning some pretty advanced new words from it.

 

[kangaxx]

I've picked up the odd bit of history from EU4 as well...

 

[Gahbreeil]

The Polish are way ahead of you. No violence, age 6+, adventure game.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

I improved my touch typing playing The Typing of the Dead.

 

[karoliner]

Persona taught me how to pick up girls.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

There are those simulation games about building things that are pretty popular. It looks like a sandbox is a good fit for the genre since there are no worries about wasting materials by letting the player do whatever he wants and see where he failed when it explodes. You can find reviews saying they take some liberties, though.

 

[Haba]

Rapelay.

Case closed!

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Back in middle school I had a perfect score on my History exam about the Italian Renaissance, because I played alot of Assassin's Creed 2 the summer prior
In fact I was the only kid in all that year's classes to get the last question right - it asked to name the buildings on the pictures

 

[V17]

GeoGuessr comes closest I'd say.
There's a lot of metagaming in it (like recognizing what country you're in using a few blurry pixels that identify a particular Google car that is only used in said country), but apart from that you do actually learn about world geography.
I don't know how useful it is on its own, but it helped me put information from other sources (or from school) into context and motivated me to watch documentaries on certain countries, plus I learned cyrilic because of it.
Most of all I find it fun as fuck and I love the fact that the game world is the actual world, although inevitably filtered by what Google decides to put into street view. There are some user scripts that allow for example local Chinese street view-like content, but it's separate from the main game.

Among more standard videogames I don't know about anything that's good enough and educational in the traditional sense, teaching facts, but there are some games here and there that can serve well as a supplement, to help understand facts learned elsewhere. Like This War of Mine to better understand the horrors of war.

 

[Gregz]

By "educational" I mean "something that adds to your knowledge or skill in the real world".

To be honest, I'm hard-pressed to think of a single example of a game that's educational as well as genuinely fun to play.

Almost all games exercise problem solving skills.

 

[Gregz]

By "educational" I mean "something that adds to your knowledge or skill in the real world".

To be honest, I'm hard-pressed to think of a single example of a game that's educational as well as genuinely fun to play.

Almost all games exercise problem solving skills. Learning doesn't have to mean filling your head with new facts.