Wizard101 and the Benefits of Educational Games
In a previous post I discussed some of the benefits that can come from online games. That post was driven primarily by the experience I had speaking at a conference and being concerned that so much of the press and academic focus was on the potentially negative aspects of gaming. I was thrilled to read a recent article on Venture Beat where Dean Takahashi had a chance to have a conversation with Mark DeLoura, the senior adviser for digital media at the White House. I highly encourage all of our fans to read the article and leave comments as it is wonderful to see this kind of focus on the POSITIVES that can come from gaming. If you hear cheering as you read this it quite possibly could be me still sitting in my office vigorously applauding. 🙂 This has been a message I have been trying to explain to the press for almost six years now. Perhaps more accurately stated this has been a message that we have heard from our players for the last six years. It is wonderful to finally see a well-known outlet cover the educational benefits of gaming. Perhaps just as exciting is to see the focus at the highest level of our government.
One uphill battle I’ve faced in relating our players stories was “Wizard101 isn’t a true educational game”. I guess in the most technical sense that rings true. Wizard101 isn’t a “Math Game” or a “Spelling Game” that was designed specifically as a game to teach math or to teach spelling. Of course, neither are some of the games that DeLaura references including Mine Craft (a wonderful building game). But the root of that argument is that if it isn’t a game specifically designed to “teach math” then it cannot help players obtain increased mathematical skills and thus is not an educational game. That argument seems about as flawed to me as to tell a teacher it was bad to assigning Harry Potter to kids as a summer reading exercise. Harry Potter isn’t written specifically as a textbook to teach grammar or spelling. It’s not a technical book to teach English fundamentals so does it have no learning or educational benefit to the reader? I would argue that the Harry Potter series is a wonderful story that keeps people of all ages engaged, stretches the imagination and certainly helps young readers improve their reading skills. Thus, it has “educational value” to the reader. I’m not sure how many people realize the extent of reading in Wizard101 but there over 50,000 lines of text in Wizard101. I feel confident talking about the educational value of Wizard101 because of the huge number of letters, comments, emails we have received from parents and players telling us how much our games have helped them improve their reading, spelling and grammar skills.
It’s the same story with math. While not technically a math game we hear countless stories about how player’s math and reasoning skills have improved. The card game behind Wizard101 has a huge component of statistics and our players learn this as they progress. They are taught to solve problems, to reason out solutions, to understand which combinations of spells lead to the best outcomes.
This same concept seems even more so when it comes to teaching creativity. Is Wizard101 technically an art game? Nope. But tell that to the thousands of fans who’s art submissions we receive (we have entire walls in our office decorated with fan art). How about to the players that have written thousands of pages of creative stories inspired by Wizard101? In an era where programs like creative writing and art are being cut from our school systems our children need an outlet and an inspiration for creativity. Whether that is Wizard101 or other forms of inspiration.
There last area I would like to touch on that was discussed in the Venture Beat article is the growing opportunity in our economy and workforce for actual technical skills. Skills like computer programing, digital art and engineering. While games like Wizard101 don’t really “teach” these skills I think it’s very hard to discount that passion that can be driven by experiencing an amazing virtual like Wizard101. I firmly believe that many of the future employees in these fields will get their “start”, their “passion” to pursue those careers by engaging with games like those that we make here at KingsIsle.
I would highly encourage you to share your views on this topic. Clearly leaving a reply here is great but if you are willing, please go to the Venture Beat article and leave a reply. Perhaps Mark DeLoura will read your comment and help him continue to position the values of these types of games at the highest levels. Who knows, maybe if enough positive comments are left President Obama himself may read a few 🙂
Fred Howard
Vice President of Marketing
KingsIsle Blog 
I am a Great- Grandmother with beginning memory loss. I have significant other medical problems which often leave me housebound and at times bedridden. Wizard 101 is a great way to exercise my memory and the interaction with other players is absolutely wonderful. I have a 20 year old grandson who plays and we have become mush closer. I love this game.
yes I am so happy you said this, that’s what I feel this game is all about SOCIALIZING
I love the game, too!
this game ROCKS! I dont have any words to say than thank you KingsIsIe for making
Wizard 101 and Pirate 101 # thanks alot for making these awsome games ! #yoLo
Wizard101 teaches children, whether they want to believe it or not. They can learn to socialize with people (a very positive aspect for shy people like me), understand basic mathematical concepts, learn to save money (usually lol), and most importantly, it teaches children critical thinking and strategy. I grew up with this game (still technically growing up; I am 17) and it has helped me in numerous ways. The real reason gaming is often criticized is not because games don’t hold educational value, it is because the games that get media attention are games like GTA and COD. These are the games that the news often covers and whatnot. While these games may be fun to play, they can hold negative consequences for children that are not yet mature. Wizard101 is most definitely not a game where violence is the keystone to its gameplay. Wizard101 focuses on problem solving (a skill that should be taught to children), not seeing who can kill the most people or something like that.
P.S. I am not criticizing games like GTA or COD. Those games are enjoyable, but honestly, the last thing kids should be seeing is someone gunning down a city. Those games have their mature rating for a specific reason.
Your comments about the violence of some games is an excellent statement. It is the reason why I recommend Wizard101 to younger children that I know. It is not blood thirsty. As a matter of fact in some instances quite comical when showing how the bad guys die (ie: the mice in the tuxedoes). With immediate news on the internet and all the bad news we see, children need to be children and not young adults all their lives. Socializing is great, but we all need to make sure our children are making real life friends that they can go to movies with or swimming with. But, when our children or adults cannot get out due to health, there is nothing wrong with this game, as long as we realize that we truly dont know anyone even in real life and we can get hurt just as badly online as in real life.
I agree with this because some games come with thinking and strategy. So I also know that mom and dad think that gaming is just a waste of time but it actually helps some of the time when you have to think about it and then figuring out is part of that. Next time your parents tell you to quit gaming tell them why gaming helps them out.
I love this game so much. I have advised my friends about playing it too. They said they loved it and I told them it helps with learning skills. I will keep persuading lots of my friends to play this game for its educational reasons.
Yes, Wizard101 does have their educational values and everyone has learned something from it. Whether it’s typing skills, math skills, problem solving, and so forth. But what I personally learned from Wizard101 is social skills. Since I’m home schooled, I don’t have a lot of irl friends and literally the only person I talk to is my tutor and maybe my mom every week or so. And when I saw the commercial, I just HAD to play this game. The wonderful people on here shaped me into the person I am today. They taught me social skills I could never learn from my tutor. How to be funny and sarcastic. How to tease lightly and how to be respectful. And I’ve noticed how much more I talked to people in the commons, how much my memory improved from remembering all my back-stories with everyone on my maxed-out friends list. How much more competitive I’ve been with my friends in pvp and then being a good sport and saying “gg” after I lose. I love this game so much and I can’t express it inn words. Just being on this game is a delight and it overflows my social health. Thank you so much, Kingsisle, for creating a wonderful, beautiful and VERY EDUCATIONAL game. Wizard101 is my top game no doubt.
The game has maid me improve on my math skills and skills for different things.
Something I have noticed as a possible learning advantage is profit. Kids could keep track of how much seeds cost and what they profit from it through harvesting, and the same for crafting. I have some ideas on how to gear this idea towards specific audiences if it’s of interest.
I wouldn’t call Wizard an “educational” game, but I do believe that there are a lot of lessons to be learned from doing the quests. I do think that Kings Isle could incorporate more educational facets into the game; for instance, on the pet games there could be a math or spelling game.
Agreed.
yes
I learned that even though someone may seem to be below you it doesn’t always mean they are not as good as you or better learned that from the level 5 warlords although I never really rivaled their power it the first place.
I am a teacher at a private school for grades K-8 in Englewood, Florida. Believe it or not, we have enabled our students to each have a Wizard 101 account and several of the teachers play as well, including me. What we have found is that it challenges students to read, perform math, take responsibility for plants, and set goals. We have seen a great increase in student desire to work as well. In some school contests, we use crowns as a reward! There is quite a bit I could go on about, but to sum it up, I would like to say the Wizard 101 is a great tool for education!
HI, John,
I am working on my PhD in education (see post below) and want to do an official study to document what you are saying. Do you have any data, even anecdotal? I would be interested in talking. I don’t know how we make connections through this forum, but if you reply to this reply, we can figure something out. Thanks.
lemme go to that school it sounds awesome 😀
It also teaches the children that the generation gap isn’t always what it seems! I bought the game for my grand sons ages 4,5,& 8, and they learn strategy, reading, and more importantly how to spend quality time with Papa!
Wizard 101 is a game that me and my family play together and it helps us to spend time together and communicate with each other. But we have played many other games as a family and non of them bring us together like Wizard 101 has done. And it also Helps Everyone to learn how to be a team player and work together as a team.
My sons both started playing Wizard101 right around when the game opened. They were about 4 years old at the time and over the years I think a lot of both their growth in math and their enjoyment of the subject has come from the game. Wizard101 has numbers everywhere – on the damage spells, on the blades, on the traps, etc. At the beginning the game helped them learning numbers, place values, etc, and as time has gone on it’s helping them learn about how values multiply together to effect outcomes (ie 25% off is more significant than adding 25%). They’ve read a lot in-game (though they’ve always read a lot both in-game and out of game). They’ve learned better online etiquette (a skill that’s becoming more and more important as so many interactions move online). I couldn’t be happier with Wizard101!
this is my favorite game of all time!!! I wish you could make more Kingsisle games.
that’s so great. I think gaming is a very good experience for learning.
P.S. KingsIsle is AWSOME!!! : )
THANKS FOR THIS that’s what I be telling my parents well my dad every time he see me on this game. its fun and statistics I even made my own little comics using the drawing style of abracadoodle I did it for a while and then I felt like I was stealing so I drew more advanced like almost anime. And I would like to apologize on a few years ago my mom thought you were taking the money from credit card ( if you remember ) but yeah anyway keep being awesome,
This article reminds me of a book that I have read recently titled “Everything Bad is Good for You” by Steven Johnson. It’s not a book a younger player might read but it’s definitely book that relates heavily on the taboo that media is actually improving our education. Being part of the “Y” generation we’re often mistaken for not getting a good education from media. However, like Fred Howard, and Steven Johnson had said, there are a lot of hidden educational properties of media. TV, for example, once provided a gratuitous explanation of what was clearly happening. My favorite example of this is the old Superman series where he was explain that his powers were getting drained from a rock (kryptonite) that was clearly affecting him. But now, there’s a lot of shows where it isn’t so obvious but will give implied hints. I find Wizard101 to be a fantastic game for any age.
I love wizard101. wizard101 is a awesome wayh for peoples to talk to other peoples on wizard101 and i think alot of people like to play wiard101 and it is a awesome and cool game to play online.
I am working on my doctorate in education, focusing on video games and video game technology in education. There is a body of research that shows that the learning that takes place in and around video games is “incidental”, meaning that the player learns things in order to get better at the game. Games also give the player the choice of whether to learn or not. Players can choose to stay at the same skill level or on the same quest, but most choose to move on. By approaching learning in this manner (giving choices, incorporating learning into improving in the game) games help maintain the player’s intrinsic motivation to play, and to continue to learn. Games that attempt to “teach” directly, i.e. a math game, don’t give real choices, and learning is not optional. Most of these games aren’t even real games, as far as the definition of a “game” shows.
If anyone from KingsIsle is monitoring this forum, I would appreciate the contact information for someone who could help me set up and monitor multiple accounts in an elementary school for my thesis project next fall. I had a school tell me today that they were very interested in having me run an after school “gaming club” with the intention of investigating whether or not the games had a positive effect on student math performance. I think they will, and I want to include Wizard101 for all the reasons mentioned in the article, but also because it is fun 🙂
I am a player of wizard101 and one day I just started writing this story based off wizard101 and Harry Potter. (something else I like a lot) I didn’t notice until now that the idea of the story came to me after a month or two after starting wizard101. It has been a year since I started the story and I think it is more like a book now. I hope that someday people will see my book and read it, maybe I might publish it. Until further notice probably not, but I can dream, right?
brilliant argument i back you 100%
Wizard101 and Pirate101 inspire me to work hard to become the best artist i can thats so much for making the games
I NEVER THOUGHT OF IT THAT WAY!!!
agreed to all of you 🙂
but this is cool i did not know this could make me smarter!
wow that really helped me a lot thanks 😀
wizard101 is the best game ever
very cute
I like how they don’t compare to minecraft or criticize it.
Education very important
this game is amazing
I’ve learned about Britain and Egypt and it’s history from Krokotopia and Marleybone. There are also MANY terms I know for school thanks to wizard101.
🙂 i love wizard101
I have been playing this game for three years now and anyone can say that since then my math, reading, problem solving, and social skills have improved dramatically. Without the help of this game, I wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone still, let alone be in the Honor Society. The people in my school don’t believe me on this though, but it’s true! Not only does it help in school, it also helped me on everyday things. It was a way for me to get away from the troubles I have. Thank you KingsIsle. Though, I don’t think that “thank you” is enough to say how much you helped me and others.
omg omg omg i love wizard101. i don’t really play games like wizard101, but this isn’t just another game its an awesome one. I also don’t read blogs allot but I just wanted to say thank you for making this game and also pirate101. bless you people/ wizards or pirates!!! =D bye bye
wizard101 is my life.
I play wizard101 all the time and my reasoning skills have improved! I also have improvd ettiquette and internet safety, because someone wont like you if you leave them in a battle w/ a boss.
I love wizard101 and actually it made me very wise with text chat and I actually got 2cd place in a spelling bee :O 😀
I have found on many occasions that my children ask me for help with math that is not very complicated like simple addition and subtraction problems. However, my 9 year old daughter can easily calculate the resistance a pet would recieve from it’s SAP should it get proof and defy the game itself is not important when it comes to Teaching aspects of math it is learned because it is interesting and captivates their imagination. Another way this Non-Traditional learning game helps children is with their ability to type with speed and accuracy. When they did not have open chat they would get angry that the words wouldn’t show but they quikly realized by typing the word over until it shows up is the correct spelling. This was a most welcome side efffect of a “silly game and waste of time” as my wife would say, i believe the benefits of stradegy and cooperation with others has made my children more confident and sociable, and much to my delight i can actually type more than 40 words per minute as a result of my interaction with people on wiz101.
this game is very inspiring I my self am only a level 21 I still have very many adventures to go on in this game in all sorts of places in the spiral. in this game you look out for each other like in battle as so your friends can heal you and you can heal them also you can gift friends treasure cards, reagents, clothes, housing decorations and pet snacks in the game. this game encourages players to care for each other virtually and socially. from tannershadowstaff level 21
i really like this game even thought am a little girl turning into a teem this game is pretty good my little cousin plays this games its for kids to believe in it or not. its a really really cool game i reccon teachers play it 🙂 🙂 🙂 I LIKE THIS GAME!
I believe this game is good for my nephew who is learning English. He doesn’t like reading books. But I could see that he devours every word he read here. (We are not native English speakers.)
This guy has a very good point. Wizard101 really does help skills and improves reasoning and all that. Older players like myself and others also get a better sense in strategy that even chess can’t give in the same way. Things learned here can help in other games played away from W101, and can even be applied to real life situations.
Although Wizard 101 may not be an educational game in the strictest of sense but Wizard 101 and Pirate 101 give the whole family can Play together and share with even their friends. I have seen where those who play this game are more likely to recommend it to other.Thus If the general populace doesn’t think these are learning Venues well there wrong. these games do help with math,Reading and hands eye Coordination and for some who have Memory deficits and helps with that as well.
I allowed my kids a certain amount of time to enjoy their favorite game online and they chose mind craft. I felt it taut them the fundamental’s of geometry and concept of responsibility to care for a virtual farm. I think that should count for something.
its good for kids to be educated while playing online. I hope this help the future kid in there studies 😀
i think it is educational in a way, my mom is always saying GET OF THE GAMES and now that i know this a can tell her and maybe she will be less strict!!!!!
I agree this game is indirectly educational( teaches spelling, problem solving/reasoning basic math, and teamwork) I am a researcher at ssrc Mississippi State University and we work with the well being of kids. We did a study on online games. I already played this game but wow was i shocked w101 helps improve social skills anywhere from 20-35%. I love what KI is doing keep up the good work. 🙂
This game is a great game I actually do better in school with it when I lost my laptop I started doing bad so i am glad someone researched this good job Kingisle