I’ve been thinking about the course Justin Hodgson details in the fourth chapter. But, more specifically, I’ve been thinking a lot about what he says about the difference between games and course design: “[W]e must keep in mind that there will always be some disjunction in transferring principles between the two systems as content is often the most important thing for course design whereas experience is for games” (48).

I’m not sure I completely agree with this, and I wonder if content really is the most important pedagogical concern. And I guess, similarly, I also wonder if experience is the primary concern of games. Indeed, even Hodgson seems to backtrack a bit here, albeit in a bit of a hurried, haphazard way: “It could just as easily be argued that we should be designing courses as intrinsic experiences for students, and perhaps many do, but that argument is beyond the scope of this specific work. What is important here is that we recognize (1) there are core distinctions between games and courses, and (2) there is great potential for bringing games (and game design principles) to bear on pedagogy and course design” (48).

As such, while Hodgson’s two recognitions of core distinctions and pedagogical potential do seem important, it also seems important to unpack a bit further the importance of content and experience and the manner in which the two might inform each other and overlap in both course design and games. In this way, perhaps such an engagement really shouldn’t be beyond the scope of Hodgson’s discussion (or ours), as he seems to believe.