Archaeogaming

The Society for American Archaeology session titled “Leveling Up” looks to explore the intersection of archaeogaming and education. The tie between archaeology and history and games for education–whether they be tabletop games or digital games. Myself and several colleagues will be presenting our research on this intersection. For me, my presentation will focus on the aspects of my dissertation research, providing a comprehensive review of the state of archaeogaming for the ancient Mediterranean.

Since discovering this blog back in 2018 and becoming manager and editor in 2019, I have found a significant amount of interest in archaeogaming by fellow scholars, students, and the public. The interest began to fuel my own research goals, including the integration of archaeogaming into my dissertation which was finalized last year. You can find the full text for the dissertation online for free.

Part of the research was to discuss the state of serious games for archaeology and archaeologically created games. In the dive into archaeogames for education in ancient societies, I found a significant amount of interest research on historic and archaeological games as well as research into the history of serious games. The resulting historiography on serious games led to discussing the state of serious games for education, outreach, and research. The expansive history of serious games covers topics from training simulators to advertisements to exergames–those which attempt to make exercising fun via games like Wii Fit.

The ultimate conclusion is that serious games are a serious benefit to enhancing education and interest in the topics through digital and tabletop games. This benefit is expressed in all levels of more formal education–including primary and secondary education and up through higher education–as well as informal education outside of the traditional classroom environment. They prove to increase engagement, promote interest, and create deep knowledge and critical thinking skills. While many people may have played a math game or experienced touch typing via gamification methods, the critical thinking and deep learning–that is asking questions of the material outside of the basic knowledge–is the most exciting part of adding games to education. While games can teach surface level knowledge, their benefit in deep learning and playful questioning is a distinct benefit when compared to traditional classroom methods. This is not to say that classroom lectures, readings, and quantification of knowledge (like tests) are not beneficial; it is more to say that these should be in place with games in tandem to provide the base knowledge and increase the engagement and excitement around a topic.

For serious games in history and archaeology, there are increasing numbers being created. But this is to ask what is the availability and accessibility of these games? Where are these games located? Do they require a download or purchase to play? Factor such as these must be considered when looking to implement games in education. It’s great that we know that games are beneficial, but what is the real state of serious games for history and archaeology. They’re being made and published about, but are they being made accessible for educators?

More widely, what do games about the ancient Mediterranean, serious or otherwise, look like for general access? Are entertainment games providing a clear and accurate view of these ancient peoples or is there a lot of work to be done to combat popular culture representations of these societies? To answer this, I’ve also done a deep dive into the numbers and tags on Steam, checking what is being represented about the Roman and Greek societies in popular games. All of this to answer that archaeologists should be involved in making serious games about cultural heritage.

If you’ll be at the SAAs in New Orleans this year, stop by the session, ask questions, and engage with us. We’d love to find others who are interested in this intersection of archaeogaming and education, and anyone interested in archaeogaming. It’s truly a highlight of my week when I get to talk to people about archaeogaming. If you won’t be at the conference, we hope you’ll find the next few posts from myself and a few others on this topic interesting and exciting! Our goal is to make this topic accessible to anyone interested, even if they can’t make it to New Orleans this year. You’ll find a pinned post on this website that will include the posts, presentations, and resulting publications from this session.