Video games are a fixture of modern life in the US. According to the Entertainment Software Association, in 2024, 61% of all Americans reported playing video games at least one hour every week. For many, video games are a social experience. The overwhelming majority of parents who play video games do so with their children, and 74% of gamers report playing with others — either online or in person. Online gamers often exchange ideas via chat, or use platforms such as Facetime or Discord to communicate in real-time. Social gaming platforms such as Minecraft, Roblox, and Fortnite are also growing in popularity, reaching millions of youth. On any given day, Roblox engages roughly 89 million users.

As their popularity grows, social gaming platforms are quickly becoming sites for informal learning. Studies show that educational games can offer more engaging learning experiences than traditional curricula. However, for the makers of these games, finding ways to appeal to youth — and maintain their interest — can be difficult. Some entertainment-based games use deceptive or potentially harmful practices (such as in-game purchases) to motivate and retain players. These practices are unsuitable for educational games, but without them, these games have few tools for ensuring that people keep playing. This begs the question:

What can educational game developers do to attract and retain people’s interest in the learning experiences they provide?

One solution is to tap into our prosocial tendencies — that is, our basic desire to help others. Prosociality is fundamental to being human. We all have a need to give and receive help, and to protect and nurture those we care about. These needs often push us to acquire new knowledge and skills we can use on others’ behalf — and to persist through the various challenges that arise on the path to learning. While the process of gaining new knowledge and skills is a personally beneficial one, it is often motivated by prosocial goals. Simply put, we all want to achieve for those near and dear to us, so we can better care for them.

What if that was how video games worked? What if video games spoke to our need to help those we feel obligated to? What if educational games, in particular, were designed to connect with our prosocial reasons for learning?

Video games can be a way to promote learning as a path to community-minded action. There are in fact many examples of games that do just that, and studies have documented their positive behavioral impacts. But when it comes to educational games, much more can be done to activate people’s prosocial desires for learning.

Particularly is this the case of educational STEM games. The STEM fields are generally seen as ways to pursue self-oriented goals such as upward mobility, independence, and social status. Despite the fact that STEM gives us knowledge, technologies, and products that are immensely beneficial, the STEM professions are generally not thought of as “helping professions.” This stereotype of STEM careers as vehicles for individual success has been shown to dissuade those with more communal goals from pursuing STEM training and entering the STEM workforce.

Prosocial video games could be highly motivating for those who believe that STEM is out of sync with their communal goals. By showing that STEM work revolves around connectedness, collaboration, and community advancement, educational STEM games can more effectively appeal to those whose personal and professional interests are driven by a desire to serve others. As a result, those who need prosocial reasons to care about STEM will be more likely to gravitate toward these fields — leading not only to more socially engaged STEM activities, but also, to a better quality of life for all.

Let’s Put it to Work

So how can educational STEM games leverage our prosocial tendencies? To explore answers to this question, Knology has partnered with two educational game makers: CodeCombat and Filament Games. Both make award-winning games that youth play in school and, more important, during their free time. Both have made inroads into Roblox. In CodeCombat Worlds, players go on quests with their pets. Along the way, they build programming skills and develop their own games to share with friends. In Filament's Robot World, players design robots to complete tasks like delivering food in a cafe or planting seeds. They learn to use engineering design practices to deal with the limits of physics and task constraints. CodeCombat and Filament both bring abundant experience and enthusiasm to imagining ways to build on prosocial motives in STEM learning games.

We decided that designing new games is unnecessary. Instead, another way to activate our prosocial tendencies is to build new game mechanics that foster peer-to-peer support structures. By creating gameplay opportunities that encourage gamers to give each other advice, or to share mutually beneficial resources, educational STEM games would stimulate youth’s prosocial motivations for learning. Other examples of these mechanics could include teamplay scenarios where the success of individual group members on the success of the group depends, area of effect buffs (i.e., resources players can acquire and use to protect each others’ characters), or community-oriented individual quests that focus on neutralizing various game hazards in ways that improve the overall game environment for all players.

If the incentive for achievement is giving help to others, gamers can understand how much of STEM work is about social interaction, cooperation, and doing good in the world.

These motivations can help kickstart a virtuous cycle: players become interested in learning because they want to do good, and doing good inspires others to learn as well. As the reward of prosocial outcomes motivates players to persist through STEM learning challenges, they gain new knowledge and skills, and become more likely to see STEM as a path to relationship-building, collaboration, and giving back to the community. As they embrace STEM as a means to achieving their prosocial goals, they become more motivated to strive toward advanced STEM learning and skills development. And with this, STEM’s ability to make the world a better place for all increases, improving the collective quality of life in communities all around the world.

Photo courtesy of Emily Wade @ Unsplash