I told you, Mom! Video games help us learn History
It's not new news that video games and fun activities help us learn in a more meaningful way and without feeling like a boring load. But in case you were still skeptical, we introduce you to Íñigo Mugueta Morena, a professor at the Public University of Navarra, who is in charge of this research between education and entertainment.
"History and Video Games" is a work that analyzes the quality and quantity of knowledge about the Middle Ages acquired by children between 12 and 14 years of age. This study also reviews how attached video games are to historic reality to the reality of that time (not to be young people wanting to learn from the Middle Ages with Bloodborne and believe that blood was really used as a weapon).
Living together in a casual way with everyday aspects such as economy, culture or inequality allows us to absorb these concepts without perceiving it as a forced study. If we were able to learn all about Hogwarts and the political system of Westeros just for fun, of course we could learn the same way about the wars of independence. In learning how it is as important as what.
If you are interested in learning more about this research, we invite you to visit the site: http://historiayvideojuegos.com
We bet a lot of us learned some little things about the Templars with Assassins Creed. And if you're already a veteran, you sure learned a lot of mythology with Age of Mythology.
crusader kings 2
You mean "What history have games taught you"?
What I have learned from video games regarding history is... dont trust video games to teach you history.
Triple a games are some what unreliable and can bend the truth but strategy games like crusader kings 2 and hearts of iron are games I have learnt a lot from.
Agreed, some games even rely on reasonable historical accuracy. I certainly think it can spark real interest in history. Sometimes it can be fun to go "was that person real? did this historical event happen?" etc
My main concern are world war games and modern war games (not specifically cod). Many games, while accurate in some ways like clothing, weapons, settings etc, portray a certain peoples as evil or inherently bad and embellish stories to embed the player in the perspective of the "good guys"story. These stories have sub-concious effects on the brain, they teach us patterns of thinking we arent even aware of. This is dangerous, I think, when the stories are not actually real or events have been changed to suit a narrative.
Id advise extreme caution in taking anything as fact in a game.