Last week’s in-class discussion was focused on the many conventions and norms associated with mainstream gaming. Many trends emerge when looking across games; for example, sexualization and objectification of women, hypermasculinity in men, and certain racial norms pervade video gaming culture. This is so frequently the case, that it is possible that game developers feel the need to adhere to these norms in order to have a shot at competing with other games. And, more often than not, game franchises prefer to address and/or correct these norms only after they have secured their position on the gaming market. Thus, gaming culture presents a bit of a cycle that is hard to escape unless financial security is guaranteed.

In light of this conversation, I found myself wondering how a game as seemingly innocuous as Civilization IV might or might not fall victim to some of these gaming norms. My first thought is that, No, Civilization is largely immune to these conventions because it is too much of an impersonal strategy game for these considerations to be relevant. Or, at the very least, the game only has certain characteristics such as mostly male leaders because the game adheres to real-life history. Surely the game should be excused from the same criticisms that other games face, because the point of the game is to be somewhat historically accurate – the game makers didn’t make a conscious decision that there should be way more male leaders. Right?

I find myself looking more closely, though, and thinking really critically about certain aspects of the game. Ok, there are very few female leaders. That’s understandable, because that’s how it has typically been throughout history. But, the issue still exists of how the female leaders are depicted. Catherine the Great is a good example, because as far as I can tell her depiction in the game is younger and more attractive than the paintings that exist of her today. Granted, her younger self might very well have been more like this, but the eye-shadow seems like a bit much. Not to mention, her demeanor is sassy and volatile – if she doesn’t like a trade that you’ve proposed, she will literally slap you across the face. Why did the game designers decide that she should behave so irrationally? It might be nothing, but it does seem conventional in the gaming sense to depict the woman this way. Meanwhile, the Americans are ever-so-polite and civil.

Speaking of the Americans, something that struck me in Civilization manifested itself in one of the gameplay scenarios: “Earth 18 Civilizations.” In this gameplay mode, 18 world civilizations all start in their real-world locations on a map modeled after earth. In the Americas, 3 civilizations exist: the Inca, the Aztecs, and the Americans. And by “Americans,” I mean Washington and Roosevelt. I suppose the conventions of the game itself necessitated that the Americans started here, but it felt a little bit incorrect to have the Americans starting at the same time as the other two (and facing no opposition, as if there was nobody there before European Americans arrived…). On top of that, barbarians found cities once in a while, and the pre-assigned names for these cities draw heavily from Native American names (e.g. “Mohawk,” “Cherokee,” “Navajo,” etc.). I should mention here that two of the new civilizations added in expansion packs are the Mayans and the “Native Americans” (a catch-all civilization headed by Sitting Bull, who only represented the Lakota Sioux in real life). Still, the conscious decision on the part of the developers to name barbarian cities after Native American peoples and to imply that the Americans found an uninhabited continent struck me as highly insensitive.

Additionally, as I mentioned in a previous post, the game itself plays from a seemingly Western perspective. In the case of music, the soundtrack is pretty much exclusively European, and the units the player builds are for the most part white (even when playing as Mansa Musa of the Mali Empire or Tokugawa of Japan, your soldier will look like a white American). It is also worth noting that there are no female units in the first game, and that in the expansion pack there is only one – a female spy who wears a skin-tight jumpsuit and looks like Lara Croft from Tomb Raider.

Considering the almost guaranteed success of the game pre-release and the amount of money that went into this game, I think it is remarkable that the game is so clearly geared towards, frankly, white American males. The thing about video games is that literally everything has been included by virtue of a conscious decision, because everything was coded into the game. The scary thing is that I didn’t really think about these things until looking at the game through the scope of our discussion. And I consider myself to be an open-minded, forward-thinking person. I wonder what this might say about the nature of video game norms. In fact, I wonder if this is even an issue that pertains uniquely to video games, or if it is a much bigger-picture, societal issue. I think it’s pretty clear that the latter is the case.

 

 

The short answer: yes, Civilization is definitely educational.

As a longer answer, Civilization is probably the most educational games I have ever played, for a variety of reasons. Especially informative are the gameplay modes that are modeled after earth and mimic the distribution of real civilizations in human history.

First, and most generally, I think Civilization is a fantastic lesson in anthropology, i.e. the study of human societies and cultures and their development. Within this realm, there is a nice variety of material available that is highly informative to the player. Some of these sources are factual and encyclopedia-like, while others are more dependent on hands-on experience.

The primary format of the factual material in the game is the “Civilopedia,” which is a large digital database that simultaneously details the in-game properties of units and buildings and their background histories in the real world historical context. In this sense, it it kind of like a user’s manual, but it is also a supplementary encyclopedia full of historical information should the player’s interest be piqued. And by playing as real historical figures and building real ancient wonders and buildings, interest in the history behind them is, indeed, piqued (at least for me – I have always been fascinated by history). And I think it is important to note that the player’s interest in this history might not be inherent; in other words, they might not necessarily be interested in learning about history or facts associated with civilizations if they have not played the game. In this sense, Civilization is an example of how gaming could be considered a type of ‘catalyst’ that encourages a desire to learn – clear support for the potential of games in education.

Besides the obvious way that the “Civilopedia” encourages learning, perhaps the most effective form of education in this game is derived from the gameplay itself. In fact, I argue that this entire game is a simulation of world history and human geography. By playing this game, one can actually gain an understanding of how (and why) the development of civilization has occurred. There are so many themes to explore – for example, how the placement of Civilizations in relation to each other has affected their histories: Europe’s history is so confusing and chaotic because there were a large number of competing societies in a very small space, while China’s isolated development had much less to do with rival nations. Climatic factors are also explored; Australia was never really developed until recently, because it is very arid and lacks food resources, and the vast majority of people in Canada live so close to the US border because the rest of the country is barren or mountainous.

It’s not just the objective factors that make this game so insightful – there are subjective matters to consider as well. For example, when a close ally is being attacked by a very powerful military machine, the player’s decision is not always straightforward. There are huge losses to consider, but to leave a friend hanging would have its own set of implications. These kinds of decisions, and plenty of others, are one way in which the game teaches the player to think about the behaviors of nations in the real world; international politics are dicy at best, and most issues should be treated with great care.

From big-picture game themes to the details of international relationships, Civilization is undoubtedly a great educational game. I know this, because I can say with certainty that I have learned a lot about “how the world works” by playing this game, as well as how it came to be the way it is. I think anyone who wants a lesson in history, human geography, or climate, or even more areas of interest, this is a great place to start. And it’s addictively fun, as it turns out.