Overcoming Serious Gaming Challenges

I came across two interesting article this week that – in identifying some of the genre’s challenges and weaknesses – shed light on why educational video games (a.k.a. serious games) haven’t caught on as quickly as (many would argue) they should have by now. In doing so, they also illustrate the opportunities for innovative, well designed serious games – like the HistoriCanada Project – to be seriously successful.

One article in Monday’s San Jose Mercury News, It's really difficult to find good educational software (see excerpts), tells the familiar story of Gary Church, a clearly responsible and hands-on parent who, in looking for innovative ways to expand his son’s educational experience, bought his son a copy of Reader Rabbit, only to see it gather dust after an hour’s play. Even for a 3-year old, Reading Rabbit couldn’t compete with the towering wall of action and adventure games at the local Best Buy.

The other was an op-ed piece published earlier this month on European tech news site Tom’s Guide, entitled Educating kids with video games: a laudable, but doomed idea. In it, columnist Wolfgang Gruener details quite candidly (“most of the games used in education are crap”) why serious games haven’t hit the mark with students as much as educators (and parents like San Jose’s Gary Church) have hoped.

Excerpts from It's really difficult to find good educational software

``I'm not too happy with the choices. None of them seem to capture the kids' attention as much as the non-educational games,'' Church said while looking for a ``Mario Kart'' racing game for his son's new Nintendo DS handheld at a Best Buy store.

The segment's heyday in the 1990s came as parents raising a new generation of computer-savvy kids stocked up on software titles like Knowledge Adventure's ``JumpStart Preschool'' and Microsoft's ``Encarta'' encyclopedia program.

But not enough new material followed to sustain growth or spark new purchases. Software that was found useful often got passed to siblings.

``In the 1990s, there was a one-size-fits-all mentality, and `Reader Rabbit' and `Carmen Sandiego' were big hits. They fit the customers' needs at that time,'' said Jessica Lindl, vice president of marketing for Riverdeep, which now owns both those classic titles after a string of acquisitions. ``But the customer has changed dramatically over the last five years, and we were not meeting our customers needs.''

Adding to the challenge was the proliferation of free information available over the Internet.

``The tendency for consumers is first to open up a browser rather than going to a store nowadays,'' said Craig Bartholomew, general manager for Microsoft's education products group.

So why haven’t serious game worked? Some of the main reasons are:

Competition with the Internet – as a source of reference information, as well as casual games and communities (like MySpace or MiniClips) where kids spend most of their on-line time chatting, interacting and competing with their peers.

Obvious Educational Bent – students can spot a learning activity thinly veiled as a video game a mile away, and a teacher/parent “seal of approval” on a game is (as Vicki Saunders of Impactanation puts it) like the kiss of death.

Inability to Compete – serious games need different distribution models than console or online games because, when they’re on the shelf side by side with Halo, they don’t stand a chance.

Low Production Quality – due in part to their relatively minute production budgets, and contributing to their inability to compete directly, serious games typically lack the sophisticated interfaces, graphics and animation of their mainstream counterparts.

The Politics of Education – once a computer game even comes close to the classroom, it has to walk an almost impossibly fine line of addressing the needs/concerns of parents, teachers, school boards and government…and that’s assuming a kid will even want to play the game.

Excerpts from Educating kids with video games: a laudable, but
doomed idea

"Using video games to teach kids," goes the theory "makes it a more legitimate entertainment form." Sure, why not? There are, however, a couple of major flaws in this plan:

Most of the games used in education are crap.

Good games aren't used intentionally

Educational games are too obviously educational

Games aren't being used to teach the right things

The best way of doing this is not for educators and educational game developers to invest large wads of cash into the development of a whole new subset of the gaming industry. The educational sector should instead piggy back on the success of the commercial sector by utilising the same game engines, even games themselves, that the kids are playing at home to educate.

Why aren't id, Epic, Valve, Firaxis, Maxis and Paradox, among others, producing educational video games?

Civilization IV is educational as it is, but you could quite easily modify it to be even more so, bringing the Civlopaedia to the fore. Explain more about the history of technologies whilst kids are researching them, explain the basics of trade, industry and diplomacy as they play.

Fortunately, these two articles were outnumbered by a factor of 10 by articles talking about the growth, potential and increasing investment in serious games. Further evidence lies in the promising research and success stories that continue to pour out of universities and research institutes, and the serious gaming tracks that are increasingly the norm at game developer conferences like the GDC.

What’s more, the HistoriCanada Project appears to be squarely poised to capitalize on the industry momentum, and to address each of the drawbacks discussed in the two articles above. This hasn’t happened by accident; a number of central features and design considerations have been implemented specifically to learn from the experiences and results of serious games past. Specific examples include:

The game is built on – and therefore shares the same sophisticated game engine as – Sid Meier’s Civilization III, one of the best selling PC games of all time. In short, we know kids love this game.

All marketing, messaging, branding (note: the final game title will be determined in the coming months) and more is designed with the end user in mind, and geared towards avoiding the “kiss of death” of appearing like an educational video game. The current website, targeting potential sponsors and educational partners (selling Mini Wheats), will soon be replaced with a site (and game) entirely targeted at 12-18 year-old students (selling the Fruit Loops).

It’s being distributed directly to students, and not through the classroom. Yes, having the support of historians and teachers is important, but ultimately the classroom involves too many parties and . Whether it’s through an in-school magazine insert, a download from a portal or even as a Christmas gift, HistoriCanada is going directly into the hands of our target audience.

At the same time, in order to maximize its educational value, HistoriCanada has to manage the interests of educators, historians and parents too. Through focus groups, speaking engagements, discussion groups and (most importantly) the creative involvement of Historica and Canada's National History Society.

It teaches a ton. HistoriCanada balances accurate historical information (thanks to videos and an in-game encyclopedia based on Historica’s Canadian Encyclopedia and Heritage Minutes) with experiential learning, allowing students to change the outcome of Canadian history by facing the same decisions as early Canadians.

We’re giving it away. Say no more (I think).

Admittedly, several of these steps simply can’t apply to most games, but amongst all the factors one stands out as being critical, regardless of a serious game’s nature; designing it as a game, not as an education tool. Kids can spot a learning tool in disguise a mile away; no matter how delicious Shredded Wheat may be, because it’s nutritious it will never be as popular as Fruit Loops. Or, as friend and colleague Michael Krauss puts it, “it’s got to be ice cream for the kids, and broccoli for their parents.”