Recently I’ve been consulting with a customer on the design of a series of digital learning games for sales training. Most clients have done their research online about serious games, and find the whole gamut of samples, demos, etc. Clients typically have some thoughts about what they feel are serious games and whose game-play and mechanics they intended to emulate. Just one look at their collated ‘portfolio’ was enough to tell me that none of the content in the portfolio was really a serious game. What followed was the diplomatic squashing preconceived ideas about what serious games were in their (client’s) training context.
Recently we’ve been developing mobile applications for the iPhone. Mostly, this is a casual quiz game-type application where the user is presented with multiple choice questions. Based on the responses the user is presented with feedback about the efficacy of managing his time.
Traditionally at Upside, we’ve always used one Saturday every month for training. Typically, this training is designed for functional groups and is followed by a creative activity where there is cross-functional participation.
Abhijit Kadle | April 18th, 2009
We receive requests for information about game-based learning development services. Customers have determined that using digital games is a good choice, but aren’t quite certain about whether it’s a casual or serious game they need.
There are pronounced differences between casual and serious games. I’d like to delve a bit deeper into differences I see as being more important when deciding which way to go. The differences between casual and serious games seem to lie squarely in two domains: Instructional Outcomes, and Use of Technology.
It’s everywhere – these varied conversations about learning games and the spending of millions of dollars to further the state of art in learning games. I’ve been on a similar tack; however, it’s quite obvious that most training departments don’t have the millions or even hundreds of thousands of dollars that are required for sophisticated learning game development nor do they have the many months it can take to develop a full-fledged game.
