Contextual Studies - Tangential Learning

Extra Credits's video on Tangential Learning

This has been a topic which has been constant throughout my life without my knowledge until I have heard of the term from this one video. Essentially, tangential learning is a process within which a game does not hereby teach a player, but induces them to go on about self-learning upon a topic they find of interest. Quoting Winston Churchill, "I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught." exemplifies the psychological drive behind using this system, especially in video games. Why? Games are inherently interactive, as is learning, and require the user's attention for the majority of the time; this is what conventional education and academics have trouble with. It has been established through researchers (and common sense for most people) that someone is more likely to assimilate knowledge if it's relevant to their interests. While this may seem silly at first one has to ask themselves at how many of their present hobbies and interests they have picked up while watching a show or picked up a novel. This is the same deal for games.

Age of Empires, a groundbreaking historical RTS which reemerged awareness of ancient civilisations.

So the question now is how can one combine the two, persuading the player into wanting to learn something specific, that the designer intended? The answer is tricky; as of now there have been no conclusive examples in which tangential learning has made this possible, whereas the more direct approach of strictly educational games tends to be disregarded to outright avoided for the target audience as the learning parts feel like a chore. They have their benefit, of course, although they fail to understand that players generally play video games for recreational purposes, so having things like work or studying in their play time is considered a cruel joke. This is why people find the idea of a topic grasping a player's attention enough for them to learn more about it elsewhere fascinating.

Final Fantasy uses religious and mythological iconography liberally throughout the series, as seen by this example from their summon creatures

Of course one has to be aware to make the distinction between what is an actual reference or something completely made up by the developer. As seen above, the majority of the summoned monsters are (loosely) based off real-life mythology or religious icons while others like the chocobo and moogle are original creations by Squaresoft. Despite this one could certainly say that those people that want to learn are going to do so, and tangential learning may either enlighten these individuals to something entirely new and/or get them interested in another thing altogether.