I love Skyrim, and in fact it has taken up way too much of my time over the past week. And I will probably waste many days over the next few years, if Oblivion is any indication, both playing this and screwing around with making mods. But the answer to this guy's question is really simple.
There aren't learning environments that are just like Skyrim because you don't learn shit in Skyrim. The basic mechanics of the game are very simple and can be picked up in less than five minutes. It has enormous depth, more than its predecessor and arguably more than TES3 which is famous for it, but you can learn all of it in an hour (not playtime mind you, but an hour browsing some wiki). Its much-lauded lore, while compelling and among the best in video games, is comparable to any second-rate novel. When I say it has enormous depth I mean for a game. Compared to math, physics, programming, history, politics, or virtually any other intellectual pursuit, it is as shallow as an issue of Maxim. This is not an insult. It is entertainment.
Skyrim is not 'hard'. It is not hard in the sense that it could require athletic ability, and it is not hard in the sense that it could be difficult to progress in the game. A bright eight year-old could solve the hardest puzzle in Skyrim. If you play the game long enough, you will finish even if you are as dumb and incurious as a rock. You will not master mathematics by playing a mathematics game if you are dumb as a rock, or if you are naturally intelligent for that matter. Mastering such skills takes decades. And it is hard work. You have to do a lot of boring shit. And it is not always clear, the way forward. You can spend a lot of time on a thing where you later find out that most of your efforts didn't have much point, after all. It can become very tempting to give up, and if you aren't dedicated that's what you will do. Intellectual achievement is brutal and unforgiving, because you are dealing with reality and not a fantasy that someone else has created for you.
If I played Skyrim 8-10 hours a day, every day, I would get bored with it pretty quickly. There just isn't a lot of material to digest. I have been programming for 8-10 hours a day for years, and I still find it immensely rewarding and satisfying. No game can match that, and no game can provide the mostly self-directed exploration that true learning requires.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to playing Skyrim :-D
"You will not master mathematics by playing a mathematics game if you are dumb as a rock, or if you are naturally intelligent for that matter. Mastering such skills takes decades. And it is hard work. You have to do a lot of boring shit. And it is not always clear, the way forward. You can spend a lot of time on a thing where you later find out that most of your efforts didn't have much point, after all. It can become very tempting to give up, and if you aren't dedicated that's what you will do. Intellectual achievement is brutal and unforgiving, because you are dealing with reality and not a fantasy that someone else has created for you."
This, this, a thousand times this.
The worst part about it all is that because you only ever see other people's successes published in papers, textbooks, and etc., it can seem from confirmation bias that no one else makes mistakes or even really struggles with mathematics, but of course the truth is very far away from this.
There aren't learning environments that are just like Skyrim because you don't learn shit in Skyrim. The basic mechanics of the game are very simple and can be picked up in less than five minutes. It has enormous depth, more than its predecessor and arguably more than TES3 which is famous for it, but you can learn all of it in an hour (not playtime mind you, but an hour browsing some wiki). Its much-lauded lore, while compelling and among the best in video games, is comparable to any second-rate novel. When I say it has enormous depth I mean for a game. Compared to math, physics, programming, history, politics, or virtually any other intellectual pursuit, it is as shallow as an issue of Maxim. This is not an insult. It is entertainment.
Skyrim is not 'hard'. It is not hard in the sense that it could require athletic ability, and it is not hard in the sense that it could be difficult to progress in the game. A bright eight year-old could solve the hardest puzzle in Skyrim. If you play the game long enough, you will finish even if you are as dumb and incurious as a rock. You will not master mathematics by playing a mathematics game if you are dumb as a rock, or if you are naturally intelligent for that matter. Mastering such skills takes decades. And it is hard work. You have to do a lot of boring shit. And it is not always clear, the way forward. You can spend a lot of time on a thing where you later find out that most of your efforts didn't have much point, after all. It can become very tempting to give up, and if you aren't dedicated that's what you will do. Intellectual achievement is brutal and unforgiving, because you are dealing with reality and not a fantasy that someone else has created for you.
If I played Skyrim 8-10 hours a day, every day, I would get bored with it pretty quickly. There just isn't a lot of material to digest. I have been programming for 8-10 hours a day for years, and I still find it immensely rewarding and satisfying. No game can match that, and no game can provide the mostly self-directed exploration that true learning requires.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to playing Skyrim :-D