COS 261-3 - Video games as a tool for ecological learning : the case of Animal Crossing.

Abstract: Amidst lockdown policies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many used video games as a method to maintain a connection with others while ensuring social distancing. A new edition of the Animal Crossing series of games had been released in March 2020 and beat sales and downloads records. The game focuses on living in a natural environment, building a house and a village, as well as capturing, exhibiting and selling species to progress. Here we examine whether players gain species identification skills and whether it is transferred to real life models. We used the results from a survey conducted from the end of March to early April 2020 on 200 people (72 players and 128 non-players of Animal Crossing). Participants were first asked to rank their personal interest in nature and then to identify species from photos. The photos displayed both organisms present in the game and organisms that were not. We expected players to obtain a slightly higher score than non-players for questions related to the species present in the game, and a similar score in both groups for questions related to species not present in the game. Multivariate analyses (Multiple Linear Regression, Principal Component Analysis) showed that players were better than non-players at identifying real life species that were present in the game. The role of the species in the game design impacts the ability to identify the species in real life, such as plants having mainly a role of ornementation. Additionally, this study suggests that survey participants could correctly assess their naturalistic knowledge in general. This article shows that video games can help to enhance ecological learning, improve organisms identification, and might be used as a tool for education in conservation biology.