they say "people don't want education in games! they want a fantasy!"

but sometimes learning itself is a fantasy... imo we should all consider putting REAL STUFF in our games. let's talk abt how awful it'd be if Animal Crossing had Pokemon instead of fish & bugs & dinos (1/16)

(if you don't like to/haven't Crossed the Animals, consider how much would be lost if:
- Assassin's Creed was set in Fantasy Medieval Kingdom the Creative Director Made Up Himself
- Stardew Valley or Harvest Moon has you plant Yellowpops instead of Corn
...
etc)

so, you CAN play Animal Crossing and learn crap-all. if you are remarkably unobservant and read NOTHING, sure, it's just some butterflies and fish and numbers, no different from any fantasy collection of slugawumps and sharknadosauruses or whatever

but humans are curious... and good at picking up on patterns, especially when they provide an advantage.

so anyone who plays AC in the summer will know stag beetles and cicadas tend to be found.... where? not by the beach. not on flowers. on bark! on trees! neat! and true!

if someone hadn't seen a stag beetle before, they might eventually want to know a little more. they might let Blathers lecture them on trivia, or even navigate a menu to see when their periods of activity are (dawn? dusk? night? afternoon?). could even use the name to google!

(as a side-note, there's evidence that this kind of opt-in learning is the most effective -- when people can self-direct finding things they're interested in, the info sinks in deeper than, say, random infomercials or homework assignments)

there's some noise ofc -- you can't actually learn about their nesting or molting or mating or feeding habits or whatever, but the SEED of learning is there. if you see a stag beetle elsewhere, you might connect it to this data node. you have a start.

a lot of people think of learning as for kids, but we all could stand to know more stuff! especially for topics like conservation or empathy, using Actual Animals or Actual People/Cultures gives adults somewhere to start their self-education.

PLUS, it makes me like Animal Crossing more, to be able to see references to its content when I'm out and about in the real world. it's like, the whole world is building its brand a little bit, for me.

now imagine instead of stag beetles, the game had a Staggeraffe, a fictional giraffe-looking beetle with long mandibles. Bug geeks might think "hey that's a stag beetle" but for others... it's a lone, useless data node, unlikely to ever connect with anything, UNLESS googled

the predominance of Pokemon infuriates me -- it's an intellectual dead-end! you can try and tweak it into an interest in animals, but animals are fascinating in a different, more challenging way than dragons, unicorns & staggeraffes. zoology mastery is life-long, not a poke-wiki

ok I'll wrap this up momentarily, but, look, the point is: whenever possible, try to use real stuff. it'll make your game richer and your players will benefit.

there are 3 main reasons NOT to put "real stuff" in your game
- it takes research, time-consuming, gotta avoid mistakes
- it makes your game more closely connected to earth (so less plausibly a magical Other world)
- your concept artists might be bored
- it doesn't build your IP

but consider not just the benefit to the player... consider that the universe's IP has already been building on itself for billions of years! even setting aside physics, biology, & geology, millions of humans have contributed architecture, music, product design, literature, etc.

of course, not every game would be improved by EVERY element being real -- being an Elder Scrolls fan, I'm glad some fantasy worlds exist! (tho if their alchemy were closer to real-world botany and chemistry it might be even better, imo, ahem)

anyway, I hope some game designers out there (especially indies) take this as a nudge to re-consider their fictional elements and see whether it might make more sense to lean on the real world to make their game both more edifying and more richly textured.

thanks for reading~