[quoting Quinn, 7 Dec 98] I'd very much disagree. Games don't have to be all of the learning experience. In certain games you might have reflection built in, and I'm not sure it can't be part of a flow experience. Regardless, if kids use well-designed games as practice, the reflection can be external to the games.
I do agree with you that reflection doesn't have to be built in to a computer game, it can be external.
Also, why is game playing a minority occupation? Certainly doesn't seem to be among kids!
I agree that children are the majority players of computer games, but the amount of players decreases exponentially with age. I can't think of any 65 year old I know who plays computer games!
Ahem. Let's discriminate between "twitch" games and other exploratory games. It's been pretty well discussed that non-time-critical, so-called adventure games are ones that can be used to embed cognitive skills.
BUT... I have to say, children, (the majority of game players), play "twitch" games and not adventure games. Only a small minority of game players play adventure games, which you say can be used to embed cognitive skills. Quoting sales of games like Myst or SimCity to counter this argument would be biased because these games sold on hype (I bought Myst because I heard so much about it, only to be utterly bored by it). I'm sure many others were the same and only if you quote me a figure of how many people actually played and enjoyed these games would I be statistically satisfied!
So I stand by my earlier statement [7 Dec 98] that "computer game playing is still a minority occupation", but with the extension "adventure (i.e., non-twitch) game playing is still a minority occupation". Perhaps adventure or exploratory games can be used to embed cognitive skills, but the people who play and perhaps are interested in learning like this are a minority, as reflected by the amount of players who actually play these games.