Gamasutra: 'Soapbox: Making Learning Fun'Gamasutra: 'Soapbox: Making Learning Fun'

In the latest Gamasutra feature, game designer and consultant Clark Quinn, author of Engaging Learning: Designing e-Learning Simulation Games, gets on the Soapbox in his call for making educational video games fun. In this opinion piece, Quinn goes through his list of what elements a game should have to offer an experience that is engaging, and at the same time makes for effective learning. In particular, in his introduction, he notes: "It's obvious that learning games should work. Not only as we hear in prognostications from James Gee, Marc Prensky, and others, but our own intuition tells us (as well as watching kids), that when learning is done right, it can and should be fun. Learning should be hard fun. The question has always been, how do you systematically, and reliably, design fun learning? Previous attempts have been pretty hit or miss, at best. Just cramming game designers and educators in a room hasn't worked. What can we do?" You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).