Educational games have been around for as long as I can remember, most likely longer than that. I grew up playing Math Blaster, Gizmos and Gadgets, Reader Rabbit, and other games of the sort. All of them were educational, but at the same time they had something appealing to me. I could learn academic fundamentals while enjoying myself, how cool was that?! That being said, I personally do not feel that a virtual simulation of a classroom could be classified as a game. The games that I listed all incorporated educational material in a fun environment, whether I needed to figure out a math problem to reload my alien blaster, or spell a word right to rescue some little elf. Where is this appeal in the "game" this article is about?

While I will have to give it to Harvard for attempting to make a higher-level educational game, I doubt they thought the entire concept through carefully. When a middle schooler is sitting on a computer, and this computer has a simulation of school on it, will the middle schooler follow the simulation or will he bring up Snood or Solitaire? Secondly, when a student screws something up in a simulation, or has a question, where does he go? Although a virtual teacher could have a pretty impressive AI, I sincerely doubt it could answer all questions as thoroughly as a real teacher in the flesh and blood.

When creating a game, the designer(s) must always keep in mind that it needs to stay a game. It doesn't appear to me that this game followed this guideline. On the drawing board it may have sounded like a good idea, but this simulation lacks too much to replace learning in a real classroom, and focuses too much on education to remain a true game.