How long has PIXELearning been making serious games? What prompted you to pursue this market?
The company was established in 2002 specifically to use games and simulation approaches for training and education. We have been making several transitions over that period; from being a 'work for hire' contractor to a provider of technology products; from fairly simplistic 'edutainment' type content to sophisticated business simulations; and, from targeting the entire 'learning' space towards focussing on corporate training (business and management skills development).
We came from an eLearning background and were driven by a desire to use technology to provide truly interactive and engaging learning experiences rather than simplistic information delivery.
Do you think there is a difference between e-Learning and serious games?
Yes and no (sorry!). Serious Games could be argued to be just one way of using technology to enhance learning - eLearning is itself just a niche of this marketplace if one considers DVD, video and interactive whiteboards as technology-based learning resources. On the other hand, eLearning, if it is defined as web/internet-based learning content and delivery/collaborative applications, has become somewhat typecast in it's nature with an emphasis on delivering information (which few would consider to be interactive) albeit with a few ‘bolt on’ communication and shallow assessment instruments.
I feel that it is important to distinguish between what eLearning does well, which is providing you with information (the theory), and what it does not. The latter being the provision of rich, rewarding, relevant and multi-faceted environments in which one can actually put the theory into practise in a safe, simulated manner and to learn at a far deeper level as a result.
The design and development competencies of the eLearning developer and the game developer are quite different.
Does PIXELearning focus only on larger companies? Mid-sized companies? Small companies? A mix?
PIXELearning's goal is to be a provider of tools that allow non-technical learning professionals to create customised business and management simulations themselves. We do not want to be a game developer ourselves. Rather we believe that for Serious Games to have true value to an organisation, they will need to reflect that organisation's particular characteristics be that language, industry sector, geographic location, ethos, ambitions, problems and/or drivers.
Whilst we have created several one-off solutions for various clients (mainly public-sector) and will most likely continue to do so for a while, the focus is upon developing a proprietary technology tool set that can ultimately be provided to the end user to create highly-tailored solutions for themselves. Thus the end-users will be off a variety of sizes and types.
Do you see any market for your serious game/e-Learning products outside of the corporate market? Education, for example?
We see some potential in the schools, FE and HE sectors but only where the educational curricula includes business and management topics. We have had interest from schools, colleges and universities however we do not possess the routes to market in this sector and we are circumspect about the relative economic opportunities compared with the corporate training sector.
That said, I strongly believe that Serious Games offer tremendous potential to a very wide and diverse range of applications across all sectors, for many purposes and on a global scale.
What is the typical budget range for your serious game/e-Learning projects? Team size? Development time?
£10k to £100k for bespoke projects based on our existing BizSim engine - spread over anything from 3 weeks to 10 months. Team size is currently 8 FT and several freelancers.
Do you provide your own funding for your projects? Or are the projects funded by your client companies? Is there another source of funding for this type of project?
We acquired around £80,000 in grant funding from several sources to develop our initial technology as well as funding it through client paying work. Typically we developed the client's solutions at cost and retained title of the technology. Generally I would say that in the UK at present most revenue potential is from publicly-funded sources. I expect that to change slowly over the next couple of years and for the scope and scale of Serious Games solutions to expand as the corporate world begins to see the bottom line results it can achieve with the medium.
Have you done client-specific serious game/e-Learning development? Is there an RFP or bidding process where you compete against other developers?
We created a game for an IT Sales training company which was aimed at demonstrating that company's sales management software whilst at the same time teaching some basic sales processes. This was via a direct enquiry and involved no competitive bidding process. We have won work through tender but were in a strong position to achieve this by virtue of being in on the projects from the outset and by helping to shape the tender/specification.
How do you convince corporate execs that they should invest in serious games/e-Learning?
Games-based learning allows learners to actually put theory into practise and to develop vital skills in the process. Do you, for example, want your sales team to learn ABOUT sales or do you want them to know HOW to sell?
The medium is also highly self-motivational – not something that is often achieved with eLearning as it stands right now.
Are there things developers should watch out for when signing a contract to develop a serious game/e-Learning product for a company?
It is all about managing expectations. Clients will expect you to deliver “Half Life 2 does presentation skills” for 1% of the budget.
Very few learning professionals will have any inclination about the game development process but will have very strong opinions about the way that the solution looks and how it works (often after significant development has already taken place!).
A key aspect is knowing how to integrate effective and appropriate assessment methodologies into the learning experience that serve to demonstrate skills competencies and gaps to both the learner and their manager/mentor
.
Entertainment game developers frequently encounter frustration when they are required to do this but it is a crucial aspect of games for learning purposes. A simple post-game multiple-choice questionnaire will not suffice!
A key mantra: “Its about the learning stupid!”
What types of games are your buyers interested in? What kind of gameplay? In your opinion, in this type of game, is fun a bonus? unnecessary? a strike against it?
We specifically develop business simulations that also draw upon a measure of role playing game techniques. Typically the user is responsible in-game for a company, department or project where there is a pre-defined scenario and set learning objective. I define Serious Games as: "games for which the primary purpose is not entertainment but where entertainment serves to reinforce the learning experience".
It is often advisable to exchange 'game' and 'fun' for 'simulation' and 'engagement' if you want to close a sale though.
How does a serious game compare to traditional forms of training?
It provides the learner with an opportunity to actually put the theory into practise in an environment that is realistic but where failure has no real life costs. As a wise man once said "Experience is like giving a comb to a bald man...it often comes too late!"
Are there OSHA issues that a corporate-related serious game needs to consider?
In the UK we have to do our best to comply with Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) which requires that training services are accessible by all. Given that we use web technologies we are better suited to achieving this than those that use entertainment game engines however it is a major and, some might say, unobtainable goal, to achieve 100% compliance given that innate nature of games to require multiple senses and input/output/control devices.
Do you think games will become a standard part of training?
Absolutely. The economics of 21st century business and its requirements to be flexible and responsive mean that traditional modes of training will not always be able to achieve objectives on time and on budget. eLearning in its current form fails to deliver deep levels of learning experience and suffers from poor learner motivation. As the gamer and digital generations continue to form an even larger proportion of the work force, learner will increasingly demand learning opportunities that are delivered in the way that is appropriate to them not to whom Marc Presnky calls the “Digital Immigrants”.
What kind(s) of testing/assessment are you building into the game? That is, how do you show that the lesson was learned?
Assessment starts pre-game, runs all the way through it and continues after the game. It is both quantitative and qualitative. It serves to allow the game experience to adapt to the learners performance, to give the learner the feedback that they need in order to understand the relationship between their actions/decisions and in-game outcomes and it provides the training manager with the detail that they need in order to accurately understand the extent of the learner's mastery of the subject.
Our game engines allow the training designer to create a custom reporting template which filters through a staggering quantity of business metrics that the game generates so that they can concentrate on KPIs that are relevant to the learning objective.
Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform
by David R. Michael, Sandra L. Chen
You can purchase this book from Amazon, click here
Book Description
"Serious Games: Games that Educate, Train, and Inform" will help you learn how to take what you've learned in making games for fun and apply it to making "serious games": games for education, training, healing, and more. It will provide an overview of all of the major markets for serious games. This overview will include examples of what has been done with video games in these markets, and what is anticipated in the future, including market scope, goals of each emerging market, game types offering greatest potential, the shortest route to market by category, development budgets by category, and barriers for developers to consider.
About the Author
David "RM" Michael has been a professional programmer for over 10 years, in a variety of industries, including video games. He is the owner of DavidRM Software (http://www.davidrm.com) and co-owner of Samu Games (http://www.samugames.com), both independent software companies.<br> David is the author of The Indie Game Development Survival Guide (Charles River Media; ISBN:1584502142) and was a contributor to Game Design Perspectives (Charles River Media; ISBN:1584500905) on the topic of online community. He has written articles about game development, and covered the Game Developer Conference and the Indie Games Conference for GameDev.Net (http://www.gamedev.net).
He has also written role-playing game articles (http://www.davidrm.com/rpg/) and designed his own (unpublished) dice-and-paper RPG rules system.
A free-lance writer/game designer, Sande Chen has been active in the gaming industry for over five years. She has written for mainstream and industry publications, such as GameDev.Net (http://www.gamedev.net), and was a contributor to Secrets of the Game Business (Charles River Media; ISBN: 1584502827) on the topic of online business models. Her past game credits include IGF winner Terminus, Siege of Avalon, Scooby Doo, and JamDat Scrabble. Sande graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with dual degrees in Economics and in Writing and Humanistic Studies. Afterwards, she continued to combine her love of creative media with her analytical skills by earning a M.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics and a M.F.A. in Cinema-Television from the University of Southern California. In 1996, she was nominated for a Grammy in music video direction.
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