To cheat or not to cheat?!?

In progress...


I recently began the interview process for our gamer paper. The two subjects in question where my eight-year-old son, James, and his buddy, Mitchell. Both are avid players of Runescape and their "gamer" skill-set relative to mine is like comparing the reading level of a first grader to that of a college student. We are, in short, many, many levels apart. However, we do share some of the same motivations for playing the game. Namely, we are interested in increasing our status to gain entry to more challenging levels of the game. James and Mitchell understand the principals of good games. That is they understand what motivates players to play so called good games. When questioned what makes a good game they gave the following response:

James: "A good game takes two years to finish...it can't be easy or it gets boring."

Mitchell: "Yeah, good games, like Runescape are challenging but they are also easy enough to gain status points..like through quests and acquiring skills."

James:" ... a good game is not too hard and not too easy..."

There it is in a nutshell. These two eight year-olds somehow intrinsically know what researchers are now discovering: good games both challenge, scaffold, and stretch players. But what happens when you are stuck...when you don't know where to go for answers? Interestingly, James and Mitchell gave some insight. According to them, once you have exhausted possibilities within the game, talked to friends both on-line and off-line, you head to the "cheat sites" as a last resort. Cheat sites?!?! That sounds as it is counter to good learning. Looking for an easy answer, a quick fix. When I asked them if they felt like "cheat sites were...well, cheating," they responded:

James: "It is something you do when you need help. I don't like to use it because then I don't figure things out for myself."

Mithcell: " You don't want to do it all of the time... if you do you are only trying to gain status not learn."