Duolingo (2012)

NFTs in video games were always doomed to fail. At their worst, they were a scam, a product built not for the consumer but for the sake of syphoning as much money from that consumer to the developer with as little value returned as possible. At its best it was gambling, a speculative market that broke a game down into exchangeable tokens, bypassing the ‘fun’ part of things and getting right to the business side. Capitalism at its worst, choosing to look at every part of our world as a value proposition, an investment; What have I put in? Weighed against what am I getting out? It’s a frustrating oversimplification of human nature; It’s crass, it’s materialistic, and yet I can’t help but think, they might have a point.

What are we getting out of the movies we watch? The music we listen to? The hours we dump into the entertainment we consume? Yes, we’re happy, yes, we’ve built communities, yes, we have been changed by art on a foundational level; these games have become a part of our identity but what do we actually have to show for that other than word of mouth? What if we had proof? I’m not talking about money, nor am I talking about a JPEG you spent thousands of dollars on so you could stare at it in the dimly lit room of your mom’s basement. I’m talking about tangible earned proof of those 60 to 200 hours of your life you put aside; games as a uniquely capable resource for skill learning.

Duolingo is admittedly far from the first to answer this question; language learning apps, exercise apps and whole consoles dedicated to fitness like the Wii and Xbox Kinect have been here for a minute; the idea that time can be exchanged for skill and knowledge has kept books in print well into the digital age, well that and fantasy novels written for both teenage girls and middle-aged women alike. Duolingo, I would argue, represents a turning point for this niche corner of the gaming world, a marriage of more than just convenience between the language of video games and their goal. Every part of the app is designed to hold your attention; The heart system works much the same way lives work in Mario, penalizing you for a misstep by taking away one of 5 until you are disqualified from continuing an exercise. You can buy new hearts/lives in response to this, but I wouldn’t recommend it, the alternative is so much more effective; Duolingo gives you the option of revisiting previous lessons and going over words you’ve already learned, earning the chance to move forward. Traditionally I would spite a developer for doing this, forcing me to either grind or pay them money, but here it’s not only endearing but extremely productive. Your failure becomes a chance to revise.

The app offers a roadmap as a visual representation of your progress. It works much the same way game levels do in a Ubisoft game, biomes designed around themes, here though the themes are more goal-oriented like ‘ordering a meal’ or ‘introducing yourself’, segmenting your introduction to new words and phrases while sprinkling in old ones, giving you a real sense of growth and direction with the guidance of one of Duolingo’s colorful characters. This leads me to my next point, tone. Right from the get-go there is this saccharine nature to Duolingo, helped in no small part by its candy-coated cast of characters sort of glossing your way through what would otherwise be a Kafkaesque puzzle piece as foreign symbols and sounds are thrown at you in rapid succession. To help you through one word at a time Duolingo employs a green birdlike mascot named Duo with humor that borders on perverse but never quite crosses the line (actually reminds me of classic cartoon network), Lily, an unenthusiastic emo teen, and her friend Zari a Muslim teen wearing a pink headscarf and a beaming smile. This all works like a traditional RPG urging you to form unique relationships that emotionally attach you to an otherwise monotonous list of tasks.

Duolingo borrows and mishmashes mechanics and ideas from all over the place but what makes this iteration of each so unique is their goal. Unlike a Ubisoft where attention is the name of the game with the Assassin’s Creed team designing games, characters, and levels around the singular idea of separating you from your family and your friends for as long as possible; Unlike a Japanese Gachupin game that balances your time and effort with rewards and points that never quite hit a goal but always brings you close enough that you can justify the choice to play ‘just one more round’ (or pull out your wallet and pay for those extra points); Unlike the overall hyper-capitalist hellscape that is the videogame industry where the goal will always be getting as much from the consumer for as little in return as possible Duolingo presents an alternative, It uses these manipulative, intentionally time-consuming mechanics, these patterns and serotonin inducing actions to incentivize you learning a skill; a whole damn language actually. It's evil being used for good, and I’m genuinely so here for it.

Now I don't want to paint a false picture of them as revolutionaries, Duolingo is a business much like any other; Soulless and by necessity self-centered. In fact, they recently caught flack for firing a number of their staff in response to the promise of AI and a cheaper cost margin, so yeah, money is the name of the game and until the inevitable Communist Revolution (I’m joking... ok I’m half joking) Duolingo will not be an exception to the rule. I can’t help but get excited by their value proposition though; It’s Capitalism at its best, the promise of a Meritocracy where you get back exactly as much as you give in. This has never been true for the real world but little corners of it can see the appeal of an ideology like that.

There is a flaw to all of this though, an unavoidable limit holding back Duo’s promise of a polyglot future heralded by the gamification of education. The human flaw; the need for a why of it all. Personally, beyond some vague fantasy of moving to Kyoto and watching anime without subtitles, I can’t give you another reason why I should learn Japanese and I would argue that most people feel the same way; approaching language functionally more than anything else. This fact might just keep the app in the ‘niche’ bracket of any Appstore, yes, they are well past a million downloads but I fear there will always be a ceiling to their growth, due simply to a lack of need. We all say we want to speak multiple languages but how many of us will ever truly be willing to put in the work? Maybe through community building? A sort of social media interface designed around languages and the people interested in learning them? Pokémon Go but for Japanese? I dunno.

The future is promising though, they have made announcements on learning music notation and even, brace yourself, MATHS! These are more palatable alternatives to the existential dread most people feel when engaging with a whole new culture and attempting to become a part of it; the idea of Duo’s impressive mastery of game mechanics being used for a wider range of skill-learning courses genuinely gets me a little giddy, I can’t wait!