I have spent some time considering different kinds of literacy through a wide variety of media. But I never much considered literacy in regards to video games. In retrospect, there is no good reason why video games should not be considered as having their own literacy. There is definitely a learning curve–no one can just pick up a controller and begin to play. How one proceeds to play a game depends not only on the game genre, rating, or difficulty, but also the console, how old the game is, and the player’s exposure to gaming.
Certain conventions appear in games of the same genre, and one’s exposure to video gaming influences how quickly they can identify those conventions and act on them. For example, in action role-playing games such as Kingdom Hearts players have control of strong, dynamic characters that collect a variety of objects as they play. In order to effectively play the game, players must be able to read certain gaming cues. Glowing objects mean “pick me up!,” certain symbols mean “use magic!”, and a change in music means “an enemy approaches!” Literacy of gaming functions much like literacy of reading and writing. Those that are “most literate”–those that can read all of the cues and symbols, can read between the lines, and pick up on subtleties –can get much more out of the experience than those that only possess basic knowledge of the controls (walking, jumping, etc.).
It is interesting that now, literacy of gaming is finding a place in the real world through escape rooms. Escape rooms are role-playing games that function a lot like video game quests that require the player to solve puzzles, riddles, and discover clues to “escape” and win. Those that are literate in the functions of a video game will be most successful. If a lock is present, they know that a key must be hidden somewhere, and they will know where to look. Of course, non-gamers can successfully win the game without knowledge of video game conventions, but they are at an immediate disadvantage.
