Karsten Wolf on games and education

ZeMKI member Prof. Dr. Karsten D. Wolf is an expert in digital learning cultures and researches how explanatory videos, social media, and digital gaming influence educational processes. He focuses in particular on the design of serious games and the analysis of informal learning environments. He regularly contributes his expertise to public debates on the role of digital media in learning. At the Gamescom trade fair in Cologne, Karsten Wolf explains how video games and game-based learning can be integrated into school and extracurricular educational contexts.

How can games and game-based learning be integrated into school and extracurricular educational contexts in a didactically meaningful way?

Given the high popularity of computer games, especially (but not only) among young people (JIM Study 2024 on media use in leisure time: 73% daily/several times a week; male adolescents: 87%, female adolescents 58%), the question arises as to what potential they offer for school and continuing education contexts and how they can be integrated in a didactically meaningful and effective way. Game elements such as leaderboards or trophies (badges) are often integrated into classic learning and exercise software, but these do not exploit the special didactic potential of game-based learning. Often, the desired motivational effect is not achieved—students quickly realize that they are actually only being coerced into doing something that is apparently so boring that they need to be “coerced” into doing it, through “digital nudging” (subtle influence) and other so-called “dark patterns” similar to those used on social media platforms.

The situation is quite different for the three other options: (1) Serious games – “real” digital games that convey a message (at Gamescom, these even have their own award category under “Games for Change”). These are mostly small productions with low budgets. One successful serious game developer is Charles Games from Prague (https://charlesgames.net/); (2) Games for Learning – digital games designed specifically as educational games. Here, the learning process becomes a game, such as learning fractions in “Slice Fractions” by Ululab from Montreal (https://ululab.com/); (3) Game-based learning with off-the-shelf games – the use of commercial games such as Minecraft (mathematics), Civilization (sociology and history), SIMs (social skills), Assassin’s Creed (history), or PC Building Simulator (technology). However, the key to the educational success of all formats is the didactic integration of the games into teaching or further education in order to promote in-depth learning strategies in the sense of a meaningful engagement with the content and topics to be learned.

What skills do the latest educational games presented at Gamescom 2025 promote – and how can they be evaluated from an educational perspective?

As always, serious games and games for learning are more likely to be found in the Indie Arena Booth (IAB), although the special “Games for Democracy” area is sure to be of particular interest to anyone interested in political education through digital games. A particular highlight is the recently released game “The Darkest Files” from Berlin-based developer Paintbucket Games, in which you play as prosecutor Esther Katz trying to bring Nazi criminals to justice (trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXxAtalJAJA). The survival game “Take Us North” by New York-based developer Anima Interactive promises a narrative insight into migration movements across the US-Mexican border (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/takeusnorth/take-us-north). Also from Berlin is the game “The Berlin Department” by BTF Games, in which 120 years of Berlin history can be experienced in one and the same apartment (https://btf.de/en/apartment/). In the game ESA Shield from the Game Lab at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, players learn hard facts about real threats from space and how the ESA protects us (or rather, the player) from them (https://indiearenabooth.de/gamescom2025/games/show/19024). All in all, there are many interesting games to look forward to here, just waiting to be integrated into teaching by teachers.

When it comes to the major publishers, it is certainly worth taking a look at suitable off-the-shelf games. In addition to the various realistic simulations from Paderborn-based publisher Aerosoft, which include simulations of long-distance buses and firefighting as well as a simulator for military logistics, it will be interesting to take a closer look at Krafton’s “life simulator” inZOI and see how it compares to the SIMs from Electronic Arts. Ubisoft presents Anno 117: Pax Romana, a historical city-building simulation set at the height of the Roman Empire, in which players can vividly reenact the history of the Romans in Germany as governor of Germania – naturally with a high degree of artistic and playful freedom. The game Titan Quest II from German developer Grimlore Games, on the other hand, is an action role-playing game set in the context of Greek mythology that focuses more on heroic combat situations than on historical facts.
Whether serious games, games for learning, or off-the-shelf games – central to their educational evaluation is their suitability and integration into didactically planned educational offerings. If this is successful, positive cognitive, emotional, and motivational effects can be achieved, as they combine narrative with playful, interactive, and visual elements like no other medium.

To what extent are Let’s Plays, Twitch streams, and playful learning changing the educational media landscape in the long term?

While young people’s use of social media on Instagram and TikTok is now also understood and studied in educational sciences as a learning and educational space (especially explanatory videos and tutorials on YouTube and TikTok), the media use of male teenagers in particular on the originally very game-oriented platforms Discord and Twitch is much less noticed and studied, even though, according to the JIM Study 2024, these platforms rank fifth (Discord, 30%) and sixth (Twitch, 21%) in terms of use by 12-19-year-old boys after WhatsApp (96%), Instagram (56%), TikTok (49%), and Snapchat (47%) – similar to X (18%), Facebook (19%), and ahead of BeReal (14%), Signal (12%), and Telegram (12%). Streamers on Twitch not only provide information about the latest games, but are also ideal for political communication thanks to their highly interactive features optimized for real-time communication. It is precisely through the topic of “digital games” and the interactive formats and discussions that the streamers build up authenticity and thus trust, which can then – as seen in the US election campaign – mobilize entire voter groups for a candidate. This clearly shows how media repertoires and practices surrounding gaming generate a deeper meaning for educational processes.

At the same time, young people’s keen interest in games (note: 58% of young women also play daily/several times a week!) demonstrates an interest in the key elements of games: self-efficacy, competence, and social connectedness. These have been postulated as fundamental psychological needs by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan in their “self-determination theory of motivation.” In this respect, the question is not whether playful learning should be integrated into the educational media landscape, but rather what teaching and training can learn from games and how teachers can be better trained to make better use of this potential in their didactic planning – including the use of digital games.