The Impact of Playing Experience of History-Fiction-Mixing Games on Players' Historical Knowledge

This study examines whether playing history-fiction-mixing games, using the Chinese MMORPG Moonlight Blade as a case, influences players' knowledge of real history. Set in the Northern Song Dynasty, the game blends real figures such as Liu Yong with fictional characters, and the authors argue that although such games are not designed as serious games, they may shape players' historical understanding. The research relies on a story-based quiz of 33 blanks covering people, environment, and artifacts, distributed through a game forum and to non-players. Of 803 responses, 686 were deemed valid, comprising 488 players and 198 non-players, with a roughly even gender split and most respondents aged 19 to 28.

Overall, players scored slightly below non-players on the full quiz, but the gap was not statistically significant, and gender showed no meaningful influence. The effect of playing varied considerably by age: younger players outperformed non-players, while players aged 24 to 28 showed a significant deficit, and older players also tended to score lower. Across knowledge categories, artifact-related questions yielded the highest accuracy and people-related questions the lowest, with players trailing non-players significantly on people-related items (about a 5 percentage point gap) but performing somewhat better on artifact-related items.

The authors interpret these patterns as suggesting that games may help players absorb accurate material details about objects while leading them to confuse fictional characters with historical figures. They hypothesize that prior historical knowledge moderates the effect, with younger players benefiting from exposure to new facts and older players being misled by fiction. The environment category showed age-dependent results, which the authors attribute to place names persisting into the present and thus being shaped by everyday experience. The findings are presented as preliminary, with further research needed to confirm these explanations.