There must be thousands of parents who urged their children to get off the gaming screen because they see it as an ill-spent way to spend adolescence.
Ben Redder of Cambridge following his PhD graduation last year.
Cambridge’s Ben Redder, 30, is proof his gaming and historical skills have borne fruit with confirmation he has secured a two-year Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science postdoctoral research scholarship at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan.
Redder is one of the few scholars in New Zealand dedicated to historical game research, a field within the digital humanities primarily based in Europe and North America.
His studies will look at Japanese historical use of games to tell stories.
Redder’s passion for history began when he was at school, firstly at Cambridge Primary, then St Peter’s Catholic and Cambridge Intermediate.
Three teachers – Gail Macmillan, Marlene Mepham and Angela Moeke encouraged his pursuit of history and when he learned Japanese at Cambridge High School, Redder’s journey was set.
He started gaming when he was 10 and his interest in history began when he played Dynasty Warriors 4 on the PlayStation 2 console. It was a game set during the Three Kingdoms in China between 180-280.
“As soon as I finished playing, I spent immense time researching everything about this history. I read and memorised the dates of births and deaths of the Chinese historical figures, what happened during the battles, names of cities and different factions, reasons for the historical events to have surfaced, and even read some primary sources,” he said in his thesis.
He studied a Bachelor of Arts at Waikato University from 2012 while also doing a Bachelor of Teaching.
By then his interest in gameplay was thriving.
“Other historical games would follow during my life, but the same element always resonated with me – that these games were transporting us into the past by allowing us to experience the stories of real people, events, beliefs, and conflicts.”
He decided to do a PhD in history at Waikato over six years and examined the representations of the past through the act of playing the game as the medium of historical games via two medieval game case studies.
“The number of historical games produced and consumed in the digital game market since the late 20th century has demonstrated the growing commercial success and popularity of integrating and communicating history in a wide variety of historical periods, settings, and cultures for generations of players around the world, as well as a popular resource for creativity, storytelling, and traversable settings for video game developers,” said Redder.
Total War: Three Kingdoms, released in 2019, sold more than one million copies in its first week. Historical games, long after their release, are still widely played.
Since completing his doctorate, Redder has worked at the university as an academic skills tutor and online teaching technology technician which piqued his interest in the Japanese scholarship.
He leaves for Japan later this month.
Ben Redder of Cambridge following his PhD graduation last year. Photo: Supplied.
