History (Eric)

Games are naturally created by human beings (Hsu et al., 2008). Starting with traditional methods and continuing into the digital age, the history of gamification and game-based learning can be tracked throughout the years. Their ability to educate and entertain has been realized by many, and their use in educational systems has gained traction over the decades and into today's digital era.

The history of game-based learning has long been documented. Chess has been used for thousands of years as a learning tool in various educational contexts. Games and play-based learning were used in ancient Greece and during the Roman Empire (Hellerstedt & Mozelius, 2019). In the 17th century John Amos Comenius presented a theory of education that proposed the full integration of games/play into the learning process. In the 1970s, Piaget and Vygotsky introduced game-based learning as a pedagogical approach to learning (Hellerstedt & Mozelius, 2019).

There have been some important developments that set us on a path toward the popularization of digital game-based learning. The first general purpose electronic computer was invented in 1946, and in 1952 the development of the first video game by Alexander S Douglas came to fruition (Hsu et al., 2008). In 1983 Nintendo released an 8-bit video game console and in 1985 the Donkey Kong Jr. Math game software was released (Hsu et al., 2008). Within this timeline, we start to see digital game-based technology being used for educational purposes.

2003 was a very important year for digital game-based learning. If you were a teacher using game-based learning to support student learning within your classroom, people may have considered you innovative and unconventional (Jan & Gaydos, 2016). Within this year, researcher James Paul Gee published the book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy and Google was emerging as a quick and innovative way of accessing information (Jan & Gaydos, 2016). One decade later using digital games in the classroom became a popular practice, and instead of educators being surprised by this, they were now comparing programs and looking for clarification of similar ideas (Jan & Gaydos, 2016).

The practice of gamification first appeared about a century ago when Cracker Jack began inserting games and toys into their boxes. Many other companies followed suit in order to increase sales and the concept took off (Khaitova, 2021). In 1980 game developer and researcher Richard Bartle developed MUD1 (Khaitova, 2021). It was a text-based system for a university computer network and it was the first time people could enter a shared virtual world. Bartle’s job was to develop a collaboration platform and to gamify it. This platform was meant to turn work into a game (Khaitova, 2021).

The “Serious Games” movement also helped define gamification as we know it today. It was created in 2002 and brought together private, academic, and military groups who used games to teach non-game simulations (Khaitova, 2021). The popularization of gamification in an educational context came about in the 2010s. Here gameful designs were used to support various learning activities and started to become more popular in educational settings (Majuri et al., 2018).

Today researchers and educational professionals are turning their attention towards gamification and game-based learning. There seems to be both a willingness and a need at all levels to incorporate game-based learning and gamification into teaching practices (Lengyel, 2020). As new digital programs and innovative ideas continue to be realized, discussion continues to take place on gamification and game-based learning.