Game Play Informs Real World Play

For Molly, computer play in a simulated world connected strongly with off-line play. It reinforced her desire to create fictional worlds of her own. And it helped sharpen her understanding of that creative endeavor. In evaluating the imaginative and creafive worth of childhood activities, of course, this is the gold standard: that reading or watching television, that trips to the theater, to art and science ce museuns, an and id yyes, that play with computer games should stimulate personal enthusiasms and scaffold private, self-choice play. I looked for that gold standard among the children and teens I spoke with and found that nearly all, especially the younger ones, took at least some elements of their computer play beyond screen time.

Aaron told me that Spore was on his mind "a lot." He "plans ahead" what he wants his creatures to do, what abilities he wants them to have. When bored in school, Nate did the same for his play with The Sims. Away fi-om his Jurassic Park game, wished that dinosaurs will still be alive. ... I'd keep one as a pet—well, not a camivore." He "made up this dinosaur called Dollyosaurus" and played with her in le backyard.

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Scaffolding on the visual images and narrative scenarios of sim games, Ian and his brother engaged in very intense make-believe, the kind where objects in the real world substitute transparently for objects in the what-if universe. "Once you've seen something a certain number of times [in a game], you can visualize it in your mind," Ian informed me, "and so everything around you becomes something, becomes the world although you can still see the real world. So it's kind of strange." It is also precious. for children engaged in the possibilities of pretense find themselves only a step away from the material construction of imagined artifacts, only a step away from their ov^ inventive practice in the real world.

This is like how Sagan incorporates game rules in his imaginative play or how playing Skyrim inspired me to go hiking.