Design Paradox: Instructional Games
Katrin Becker, PhD Candidate,
Graduate Division of Educational Research,
University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4
email: becker@minkhollow.ca
ph. 403-932-6322
ABSTRACT
Current approaches to the design of games for learning can be roughly divided into two main camps:
one claiming that commercial games already employ many strategies that are valuable in the design of
instructional games and that formal instructional design methodologies are not needed, while the other argues
that the design of instructional games must apply traditional practices in formal ways and that games
designers must yield to the better-informed professional instructional designer. The main focus of this paper
is to explore the tension between these two viewpoints. A comparison of game design and instructional
design uncovers several paradoxes which must be reconciled before they can be properly combined to be of
use in the development of instructional games.

Topics: Cross disciplinary issues in game development; Serious games; Games and learning (educational games);
Bridging the academia-industry gap; Experiences and lessons learned from game development in academia and industry

1. INTRODUCTION
Support for the viability of serious games has
been growing steadily for several years now, and
the use of digital games in education is again
being examined by the education community, as it
was during the ‘edutainment’ era of the late 80s
and early 90s. Some even go so far as to claim we
are “witnessing a mad rush to pour educational
content into games in an ad hoc manner in the
hopes that players are motivated to learn simply
because the content is housed inside a game”. [1]
If true, that sounds like the same sort of bandwagon jumping that contributed to the downfall of
games for education the last time around.
Fortunately, for the most part the literature does
not support this claim. [2-5]
Although the ultimate solution(s) will
undoubtedly lie somewhere in-between, the
current approaches to the design of games for
learning can be roughly divided into two main
camps. One claims that commercial games
already employ many strategies that are valuable
in the design of instructional games [5-8] which
we need only understand in order to utilize, while

the other argues that the design of instructional
games must apply traditional practices in formal
ways [1, 9] and that games designers must yield to
the better-informed professional instructional
designer. The main focus of this paper is to
explore the tension between these two viewpoints.

2. THEN AND NOW
The last time the education community
witnessed a rush to adopt digital games as
learning technologies the effort failed to fulfill
expectations [10, 11], and one of the side-effects
was that the term ‘edutainment’ became pejorative
in the software industry and game producers shied
away from having their games labelled
“educational”. [12] Another effect was that many
educators came to view all software employing
game technology with suspicion. [13] The current
movement has a new name and a much broader
scope [14]. Rather than focusing primarily on
school-like education, the serious games
movement includes the use of digital games and
game technology for purposes other than pure
entertainment, such as applications in the military,

healthcare, policy and politics, and others as well
as education. Such a broad interdisciplinary base
will hopefully ensure that the errors of the
edutainment era are not repeated.
When one examines the culture and
technology of digital games, the landscape today
looks radically different from what it did in the
late 80s and early 90s. For one thing, the internet
was not really a viable option for mass
information exchange, or even general
communication. As recently as 1999, serious
research necessitated one’s physical presence in a
library; now with access to the digital resources of
an academic library, one can conduct most forms
of research without ever leaving home. General
knowledge of video games was scant back then
and the body of research in Games Studies was in
its infancy. When educators began to study the
use of games for learning, they proceeded largely
in isolation from other disciplinary groups [15],
and although there are still some who continue to
favour ‘pure’ educational sources over a more
interdisciplinary approach [1, 9, 16], others are
now taking a broader view [4, 6, 7, 17]. Aside
from the overall approach to disciplinary studies,
there are some other significant differences as
well. The percentage of people who play games
either casually or regularly has gone up
significantly in the last ten years. Not only are
there more gamers, they are considerably older –
the average age of a gamer is now 33 and the
prime demographics for games is in the 18-35
year old range [18]. Finally, along with the
advances in internet accessibility, Google© has
become a verb, and personal computer power and
capacity is orders of magnitude greater than it was
a decade ago. In fact, almost all of the hardware
advances made in that time have been motivated
by games and thus owe their very existence to the
medium.
Digital games are not just for kids any more
(if indeed they ever really were), and PC prices,
capabilities and popularity are largely the result of
the unmitigated success of the games industry. All
of these differences imply that the situation for the
educational use of games is, or at least should be
quite different from what it was during the
edutainment era, and a fresh approach is in order.
However, there remain several significant
obstacles to be overcome before games can

achieve the respect and recognition as educational
technologies that they deserve.

3. PARADOX 1: VEXED BY FUN (OR,
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING
EARNEST)
Any games designer can tell you that the first
rule of digital games is: the game must be fun. If
the game isn’t fun, then nothing else matters. But
is that all there is to games? It seems unlikely that
mere ‘fun’ could support the multi-billion dollar
industry that it has become. If “fun” is the sole
reason for the popularity of games, how does one
explain a first day sales record of $125 million for
a single game, Halo 2 [19]. Can “fun” explain
how one massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) like Everquest can
acquire a global ranking equivalent to Namibia
when measured in terms of Gross Domestic
Product? [20]. Clearly, there’s more to games than
“fun”.
While “fun” can’t possibly be the only
requirement - not even in games designed purely
for entertainment, it is certainly essential meaning that if the game is not fun, then the rest:
the quality of the graphics, storyline, etc. is
irrelevant. Unfortunately, fun is contextual, and
not simply defined. Someone feeling the effects of
zero gravity in a roller coaster may be having fun,
while someone experiencing the same effect
because they have fallen off a cliff would be
unlikely to attribute fun to the sensation. Just the
same, the potential power embodied in “having
fun” should not be underestimated. For our
purposes however, the implications behind the
term ‘fun’ are significant obstacles – among other
things, they interfere with progress in
understanding the symbiosis necessary between
the game design and instructional design.
Too often ‘fun’ is associated with ridicule
and frivolity. These perceptions tend to be
antithetical to notions of significant learning, and
thereby denigrated by those who prefer to
emphasize the more solemn and earnest aspects of
teaching and learning. As a result, elevating the
importance of “fun” in the context of an
instructional intervention may be problematic.
However, an examination of what actually
constitutes “fun” in this context might yield a
perspective, or alternate terminology which might

prove more useful. For example, “fun” is not
really possible without “engagement”, and
engagement is a state we do strive for in all our
teaching. If we view fun as excitement and as a
vehicle for engagement, it might help make it
more palatable. Another possible perspective
comes from the well-known games designer,
Chris Crawford: "True fun is the emotional
response to learning."
Although they are becoming known as
Serious Games, games designed for purposes
other than pure entertainment, including games
for learning, still retain “fun” as an essential
ingredient. Fun is an essential element in digital
games generally [21], and so must remain an
essential element of Serious Games as well.
Furthermore, fun must be acknowledged as highly
subjective. The ‘fun’ in a game, even a serious
game, must be carefully tailored to the intended
audience if it is to be an asset rather than a
liability. If past successes and failures in
“edutainment” are any indication, then fun is an
aspect often underestimated by many ISD
(Instructional Systems Design) people – and when
it is included, its subjective nature seems
generally to have been overlooked.
Learning happens all the time: it is a natural
condition of being human. It always involves
some sort of change: change in what we
remember, our skills, attitudes, or behaviours.
Learning is neither positive nor negative. We can
learn things that are useful or useless, life-saving,
or dangerous, helpful or hurtful. In short, learning
has no associated implications of moral, ethical or
other value. Education, on the other hand does
imply value [22], but need not result in any
change (although in order to be deemed
successful, it usually does). Education implies
deliberate facilitation of societally valued learning
which occurs over and above what is natural, and
implies some persuasion (possibly even coercion)
that is enacted upon the recipient of this
education.
Caillois claims that a game one is made to
play stops being a game [23]. If education is
deliberate, and being made to play a game causes
that object to cease being a game, then the whole
notion of educational games would constitute a
paradox. Huizinga suggests that play and
seriousness are opposites [24], and it seems that a

similar sentiment is prevalent in the educational
community: the more playful and game like
something becomes, the less serious it appears to
be, and since education is considered to be serious
and valued learning, games have no place. The
notion that games cannot embody serious or
significant learning must be overcome for games
to gain broad acceptance.

4. PARADOX 2: GAME DESIGN VS
INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN
If we are to consider the use of games for
learning, then we must also examine how
instructional design (ID) and games design (GD)
can be made to fit together. There are many
accepted and well-tested process models for
Instructional Design [25]. In most of these
models, the details of how the medium fits in to
the design are left till near the end of the process.
Typically, the needs assessment and the design of
the instructional goals and strategies are to be
completed before the design and development of
the
instructional
materials
themselves.
Unfortunately, none of the models are directly
applicable if the intervention we are designing is
to be delivered as a digital game so long as the
game is viewed as instructional ‘material’.
The educational perspective typically views
games as receptacles for content rather than
teaching methods, and this only works in a subset
of applications. Unfortunately, when applied to
fully interactive media (specifically games), this
perspective, which the author has refered to as the
‘decorative media principle’ [26] does not
translate well. When creating digital games for
learning, the design of the instruction and the
design of the medium for delivery, i.e. the game
must be completely intertwined in order for it to
be worthwhile.
Let me explain: the game must still be a
game. A typical commercial game has a
production cycle of 2-3 years, employs teams of
10 – 50 people, and costs $1 - $10 million to
produce. Games contain, among other things:
input systems, networking systems, real-time
systems, rendering engines, display systems,
sound systems, artificial intelligence engines,
asset managers, physics engines, and a front end
(which is the only part the user gets to see). Game
design is arguably as complex as instructional

design – and when the two are combined, the
complexities together become multiplicative
rather than additive. It is naïve to assume that an
instructional design process can be devised by
simply inserting “game” in the right places in the
existing literature and go from there.
As a discipline Games Design (G.D.) has
been evolving for several decades. There are
plenty of books and resources available should
someone wish to learn how to design a digital
game, which does not in any way imply that it is
easy. There are a growing number of universities
and colleges that are offering specializations in
degrees and even entire degrees devoted to games
design, and yet as with any other truly creative
effort, while most can be taught the principles of
game design, designing a good game takes
something more. If there were a formula for
making good games that could be taught, there
would be many more good games out there
(however we choose to define the term ‘good’).
Much the same can be said of I.D.
(Instructional Design). It too is a complex task
supported by several decades of disciplinary
development. Most can be taught the principles of
sound instructional design, yet designing good
instruction takes something more. However, in
contrast to G.D. which has developed largely in
the field by practitioners with little scholarly input
(at least until recently), I.D. has proceeded in the
more structured manner of an academic discipline
and the result is a substantial body of both theory
and practice upon which academic and other
researchers and professionals in the field can
draw.
If we compare I.D. and G.D. we discover that
the primary vantage point of instructional design
has largely been that of formal education, while
the vantage point of games design is more closely
aligned with the entertainment industry. Games
designers approach their task from the perspective
of the player experience [27], whereas
instructional designers approach their task from
the perspective of the content that needs to be
delivered [28]. Even though both G.D. and I.D.
are highly complex tasks, the design of
instructional games requires both. Instructional
game design requires a synergy between two
seemingly opposed approaches with radically
different histories.

To summarize, the second paradox can
actually be described as several closely related
paradoxes: I.D. tends to view games as content
receptacles rather than teaching methods,
exogenous rather than endogenous [29] and
their perspective is that of delivering content
rather than experiences [7]. In terms of
disciplinary development, I.D. is supported and
advanced through academic research, while G.D.
is supported and advanced through professional
development from an entertainment industry
perspective. In some sense this too relates back to
the original paradox: games = entertainment =
NOT serious, while instruction = scholarship =
serious.

5. LITERACY’S
I started learning to write computer programs
in 1977. I taught my first computer science lab in
1978, and have been teaching freshman Computer
Science (CS) students how to program for about
27 years, with varying degrees of success. One of
the things I have learned after all that time is that
we still don't really know how to teach
programming. Granted, we can teach people who
are interested and already inclined, but this is not
the same as, say, basic literacy (i.e. reading and
writing), which we manage to teach to almost
everyone.
There are those who hold that programming
skills ought to be counted as a basic literacy in the
21st century, like reading and writing [30]. There
is a belief that learning to program helps people
learn to think. It is hard to deny that experience in
programming helps develop logical thinking.
However, if we endeavour to make programming
into a basic literacy, we still have a long way to go
in order to learn how to help (all) people learn it,
including those people who do not dream of
becoming Computer Scientists.
An understanding of programming, including
some
computing
theory
and
hardware
fundamentals has an undeniable effect on one’s
approach to problem solving, especially when the
problem is to be solved using a computer. For
example, I am a better programmer because I
understand something about languages and formal
grammars. I am also a better programmer because
I understand how data are represented at various
levels of abstraction, and because I understand

something about compilers and how they translate
programs into executable code. All of these things
contribute to my being able to design the
programs that are digital games. How can one
hope to design good educational games if one
doesn't first know how to design games?
The question could also be asked, how can
one hope to design good educational games, if one
doesn't understand how to design good
instruction? At the risk of betraying a bias, it
should be noted that most of the critically
acclaimed game titles currently being used in
educational contexts were not designed by
instructional designers, but rather by game
designers. Whether this is true generally remains
to be seen, but it is certainly true specifically.
Ultimately, being able to demonstrate that a game
intended to be used in educational contexts was
developed with the incorporation of sound
instructional design principles will be necessary
for widespread acceptance within the educational
community.

6. INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN FOR
EDUCATIONAL GAMES
One way of looking at the problem of how to
design instructional games is to try and answer the
question: what do we need to know in order to
TEACH others to design good games for
learning? Unfortunately this paper can not provide
a clean answer, but will instead explain why a
simple answer to this question may not be
forthcoming soon.
A significant and irrefutable aspect of
designing and creating educational digital games
is the design and creation of the program that is
the game. This author remains unconvinced that
we will be able to teach people how to design
educational games without also having them
understand how to design digital games. Since we
don't really know how to do that either, our
challenge is a large one.
People need to understand their tools, and we
tend to undervalue the importance of technical
acumen when creating artifacts. Understanding
one’s tools is another form of literacy and as
necessary as the video game literacy defined by
Gee in his seminal work on the subject [31]. Some
things are just more complex and demand a

greater level of awareness in order to understand
them and use them as tools. Movies and film are
more complex than print, as is the web. Games are
more complex still. Knowing how to use
Dreamweaver or FrontPage to make web pages
(or even being able to write your own html) is not
the same as understanding how pages are
transmitted, stored, or displayed. Designing
something using a technology or medium you
don’t really understand - be it instruction or
anything else – often results something that is
somehow shallow. It’s a misuse of the resources,
like driving a tank to go grocery shopping. Now
that’s not to say that posting a paper on the web is
wrong, it’s just that it should be seen for what it is
– a convenient way to make that paper accessible
– it doesn’t make the paper into web technology.
As another example, clothing designers need
to understand fashion, but they also need to
understand colour, textures, patterns, the fibres
and fabrics they work with, and the bodies that
wear their clothes – right down to the structure
and movement of the muscles and bones.
Instructional designers need to understand their
delivery medium too – whether it be the web, or
film, or print, music, or digital games. What is not
yet clear is which specific parts they really need to
understand, and which parts they don’t. What is
clear is that a knowledge of a medium’s potentials
and limitations is essential if one is to take full
advantage of it, and when it comes to games, if
one is not prepared to take full advantage of the
medium then it is probably easier, cheaper, and
faster to use a different medium.
How grand to be able to devise a clean,
structured ID methodology for designing good
educational games. Unfortunately (or fortunately,
depending upon your POV) there are lessons to be
learned from the field of Software Engineering
(SENG) that apply here. This is a discipline that
has devoted itself to the pursuit of finding what
could be deemed ‘recipes’ for software design that
do not depend on skilled or talented personnel for
their success. Put another way, SENG has been
trying to formally specify "good" software design
for 30 years - the dream seems to be that if we can
only specify everything (requirements, metrics,
interfaces, documentation, etc.) well enough, we
will be able to hire *anyone* to produce sound
software, and the specifications and tools will
compensate for human lack of skill and talent. Put

another way., SENG has as its prime directive to
validate Edsger Dijkstra's definition: "Software
Engineering is programming for those who
cannot." Sadly, after 30+ years of trying, we still
have no real evidence that our efforts are actually
producing better software. Although software
design in general is key to the development of
games, the field of software engineering may not
be the best place to turn to inform educational
games design.
Similarly, while much can be learned from
past developments and experience in instructional
design, games are distinct as a medium, and no
existing ID theory or model is likely to help
developers consistently produce good educational
games in spite of the fact that we might wish
otherwise. Just because a model like Gagne’s
Nine Events of Instruction was thought by some
to be a perfect fit when multimedia was in its
infancy [1] does not imply that it will also be a
good fit for serious games. The evolution from
HyperCard to modern computer games is not a
linear one.

7. CONCLUSIONS
The fact remains: digital games are software.
To design good games we need to be able to
design and produce good software. True, digital
games are more than software - but they are not
less than software. We also need to be able to
design and produce good instruction. So, our goal
is to design good instructional games, when we
still don't have a nice recipe for how to design
good software, or good instruction, or good
games. Tall order.
There are people now who are designing and
building instructional games that look like they
will be pretty cool. Right now, most of the
promising educational games are being designed
by people with considerable experience, in
software and/or games design, in education or
some combination. We can't always require that
we have developers with decades of experience
upon which to draw. We can't teach new people
how to build instructional games by telling them
to go away and acquire 20+ years of experience –
that seems a little rude. SO, we have to figure out
how to teach people how to do this.

Not only do we need to teach people how to
do these things, we ultimately also need to figure
out how to teach people to teach people how to do
these things.
The design of educational or instructional
games requires knowledge of both instructional
design, and games design. There is a need to
understand the technology well enough to know
not only its limitations and possibilities, but also
the ramifications of various choices.

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