Editor’s Note: Ben Bertoli is a long-time Kotaku reader and commenter, a lifetime, dedicated video gamer and a sixth-grade teacher in Indiana. He reached out to Kotaku this past week to share the story of how he turned his class into a role-playing game. The enthusiasm and motivation of the children in Bertoli’s class evoke the success stories seen in gamified experiences such as Fitocracy. Here, Bertoli explains his creation, ClassRealm, how it works and what motivated him to develop it.
In what sounds like the opening to a Dr Seuss book, parents of all 600 children in Mr Gribble’s school got a fearful note saying their kids report to class sleepy and distracted, because they’re up as late as 4am playing video games.
For thousands of years, societies taught and trained their children through immersive gameplay and storytelling. Prospect Magazine’s Julian Gough wonders why we ever stopped and ponders a fantasy world where the games of today form the children of tomorrow.
Composers working on video game soundtracks seem to either be veterans of game-making or TV/movie composers crashing the medium. Take note, then, of schools like Berklee Music College in Boston that just might train people to compose music for games.