I'm Serious.net

Rant: Companions in Learning???

Pat LaFontaine sure seems like a great guy. He's a Hockey Hall of Famer and All-Star who was forced into retirement in 1998 due to head trauma and concussions. During a period of convalescence, Pat drew solace and inspiration from the many critically ill children and teens who were hospitalized at the same time. Through his experience, he redoubled his efforts and devotion to his foundation, Companions in Courage, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting children and families who are overcoming life-threatening obstacles. CiC has created "Lion's Dens" in a number of children's hospitals around the U.S. - essentially a playroom filled with kiosks and game stations (including an array of adaptive technologies) and conversation areas. CiC says, to quote their website, that "[t]hrough innovative communications tools, these playrooms replace the isolation of a hospital with a connection to family, friends and celebrities during each hospital stay." Yes, emphasis mine.

I guess Robbie Bach must be a great guy, too. He's Microsoft President of Entertainment and Devices Division. He and Pat announced today that their respective organizations are partnering to put "hundreds" of Xbox 360 game kiosks in CiC Lion's Dens. In addition to select games, movies and television content, the Xboxes will be linked to a private network version of Xbox LIVE. The kiosks are preloaded with a variety of E-rated games, Y-rated TV shows, and G-rated movies. Well, Robbie is head of Entertainment and Devices.

I'm an optimist by nature. (What? Fretters can be optimists, too.) I expect all children who go to hospitals come home to live long and healthy lives. But, this of course, does bring up the problem of how much school they are missing when they are working so hard at getting well. And why are these charitably-minded people (aha!) so concerned about entertainment and celebrities and not about school? (You see the fretter-optimist thing now, don't you?)

This seems like such an overlooked opportunity. Particularly when you consider that Robbie's uber-boss is Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft and Co-Founder of the Gates Foundation, which considers improving education in America to be one of its principal objectives.

C'mon guys. One of the great ways to help kids - or anyone - not just heal, but have a successful re-entry into the world is by keeping them engaged with the world they can't participate in right now. As every parent knows, kids want to learn, even sick ones. Let's not just think about entertaining them so that time passes more quickly. Let's also think about how we can keep their minds engaged, with the world and with learning!

I'm serious,
Anne

Rant: Are We Here to Work or Play? -Wrong Question!

I have heard many Worforce Learning and Productivity Professionals, as I've been chastised to call corporate training folk, complain that they can't possibly consider a serious game in their work environment, where - after all - people work, not play. In addition to all the reasons (but sadly little data) that I would offer, a couple of interesting pieces have been written recently that come at this debate from a completely different direction.

In Julian Dibbell's post to Network Performance (a fascinating blog, by the way), "Online Games, Virtual Economies ... Distinction between Play and Production", he asserts: "Work is play and play is work." His interesting "theory of ludocapitalism" stems from "the increasingly elusive distinction between play and production in the digitally networked world," for which he largely credits online games and virtual economies. He bases his comments on his year-long devotion to developing a livelihood (one hesitates to say "career") playing an MMORPG. My crude synopsis might make his assertion seem a bit silly, but his observations are, in fact, unignorable.

Rex Sorgatz has made similar observations in his essay, "The Game of Life," in Wired-15.11. For him, the blurring is between games and the gaming mindset, and life itself.

"Of course, the basics of gameplay - competing against opponents, setting records, winning prizes -- are as old as human civilization. But the gaming mindset has now become pervasive. We use game models to motivate ourselves, to answer questions, to find creative solutions. For many, life itself has turned into a game. Our online lives are just twists on the videogame leaderboards, where we jockey to get our blog a higher rank on Technorati and compete to acquire more friend-adds on MySpace than the next guy."

And who's the "we" to whom Sorgatz refers? "Those of us who grew up playing videogames in arcades." In other words, people in their 40s and younger. In other words, the vast majority of the world's population needing or seeking education, training, and workforce learning and productivity.

The point isn't whether we want work, life, and the world to go this direction. The point is that it IS going this direction, and we have to accept it and address it - most particularly in our places of learning and places of work. Every learning designer worth her stripes knows that reaching the learner means understanding who the learner is, not just what the learner needs to know.

If the gaming mindset dominates the worker-under-45 set, and work and play are all mushed together, doesn't it just make sense to meet these learners where they are, even just a little bit?

I think the next time someone gives me this objection to serious games, I'm going to ask, "Where are you from, Azeroth?" I think the answer would say a lot.

I'm serious,
Anne

Rant: To become an industry, we need a mashup!

Kevin Corti, CEO of PIXELearning, has written an impassioned, provocative piece on the blog at seriousgames.ning.com. He's quite concerned that the past 5 years have brought increasing divisiveness and decreasing support within the community of folks living under the "serious games" umbrella. It's well worth a read - and a lot of consideration.

In some ways, Kevin's concerns and frustrations echo my own. But we need to look deeper.

Web 2.0 has been a disrupting innovation for the learning world, just as were the internet, multimedia, interactive video, television, and the printing press. Among the 2.0 options, serious games are being viewed with interest by many, thanks to the not-yet-understood tipping point that occurred Spring '06, give or take (remember? - every major news outlet had a general-interest piece on SG, it seemed).

As interest grows, more people see opportunities to make money. And that breeds competition - and division. The division isn't so much between technologies or because of disagreements over nomenclature. The division is market-driven.

Mark Prensky once noted (and I'm paraphrasing), if you want to suck the fun out of training bring an instructional designer into the room. In fact, educators have employed games and play (I make no representation of fun-quotient here) as a means of learning since time immemorial.

What's new about serious games IS technology, and a pre-existing videogame industry. The surge of interest in serious games is due, of course, to corporate, academic and v.c. intrigue. It is also the result of:
1) the phenomenal success of recent videogame releases
2) the desire of independent game developers to get in on the AAA game action converging with their need to eat, and
3) the contract opportunities they see for developing serious games as a way to pay for the real work they want to do.

Now, we have serious game "old-timers" with industry tenure in the double-digits who have been designing technology-delivered games as part of overall learning designs bumping into game design geniuses bumping into technology gurus. The clash is cultural, philosophical, economic, and seismic. It needs to be terraforming.

For serious games to deliver on their promise, those who build them and those who sell them must not just assert SG's value. These claims must be substantiated by empirical research that has been subjected to peer review. As we wait for a body of evidence to emerge, we can look to existing literature to understand the significance of solid learning design in the effective serious game. The videogame market performance lends weight to the assertions.

The call now is for a head-butting mashup of learning design and videogame design. This includes vocabulary, motivation, methodology, process, technology, roles and responsibilities... - and appreciation. (Flowers might be nice.) In so doing, we make a big move from being a community of interest to becoming an industry.

I'm serious,
Anne

Message to LMS Companies

I am an entrepreneur; I admire entrepreneurism and its spirit in others. I encourage forward-thinking and thought-through initiative. I enjoy creative energy and where it can take someone or some group. When these attributes are applied in the right balance to developing a business, great things can occur. And so, from that perspective, I understand the motivations of the LMS companies to begin eyeing serious game engine developers and serious game design companies as the next golden market opportunities.

That said, allow me to point out a few reasons that you are going after the serious game market far too soon.

1. This is a very immature market. Rapidly growing, yes. But still a toddler. We are still defining ourselves. We are not ready for you yet.

2. LMS companies are in the learning business. Most serious game companies have come to this work because they were first entertainment game companies. Teaching and learning are well appreciated on a lay-person level, but there are very few learning professionals who understand game design, and so brilliant game designers are shouldering the learning design role at the same time. Assessment and measurement, their desirability, their suitability, are all relatively new concepts.

3. Learning management systems are built around recognized industry standards and highly structured content and learning formats. Serious games are, in part and by nature, loosely structured. We're still trying to determine in what ways entertainment game engines must be modified in order to become serious game engines. We don't yet understand the problem you are rushing to solve.

Moreover, I contend that LMS technology is not appropriate for serious games at all. What differentiates serious games from just about any other form of learning (I know there are those who will argue this) is that they emphasize "the group": group dynamics, team-building, group communications and interactions, community-building, cooperation. Sure, an individual player can do many things alone, but if the group weren't important, why is there a group? Why isn't it just solitaire?

How do you indicate group learning in an individually-oriented assessment? Sure, I can explicate every group learning goal into discrete individual behaviors - but why? That's not the point. The point is getting the whole group - as a group - where they need to be.

So, my LMS friends, we have a lot of shaking out to do in our industry before we can be solid business partners to you. Along the way, we must decide whether your technology is suitable for our (and our customers'!) purposes. Don't be surprised if we take a pass.

I'm serious,
Anne

Rant: Serious Definitions

The eLearning Guild issued a research report in February entitled, Immersive Learning Simulations. The first ten pages of the report are devoted to defining the term "serious game," and then rejecting the term itself in favor of one the authors hope will be more acceptable to the eLearning Guild membership: "immersive learning simulation." And hence the report title.

What definition did they arrive at?

"An optimized blend of simulation, game element, and pedagogy that leads to the student being motivated by, and immersed into, the purpose and goals of a learning interaction. Serious Games use meaningful contextualization and optimized experience to successfully integrate the addictive nature of well-designed games with serious learning goals."

If they want to call that Immersive Learning Simulation, they have my vote. Because that definition misses the essence of the power of serious games. Where's the inter-player interaction? Where's the cohort-building? Where's the strengthening/altering of belief systems? Where's the communication and community? In short, where's the multi-player component? Nevermind learner-generated content... (Plus, I'm not fond of the implication that I, a player and a designer, engage in and/or promote addictive behavior.)

I'm no happier with Wikipedia's effort:

"Serious games (SGs) or persuasive games are computer and video games used as persuasion technology or educational technology. They can be similar to educational games, but are often intended for an audience outside of primary or secondary education. Serious games can be of any genre and many of them can be considered a kind of edutainment.
"A serious game may be a simulation which has the look and feel of a game, but corresponds to non-game events or processes, including business operations and military operations. The games are intended to provide an engaging, self-reinforcing context in which to motivate and educate the players. Other purposes for such games include marketing and advertisement."

Again, really misses the essence, I fear. And there are a LOT of other definitions floating about, each remiss in its special way.

I have an opinion about this, believe it or not. I offer my own definition:

Modeled on MMOGs, Serious Games have the serious purpose to change, in a pre-defined way, the beliefs, skills and/or behaviors of the individuals and cohort groups who play the game.

Thoughts? Responses?

I'm serious,
Anne

Rant: Wayfinding and player frustration

First, a bit of self-disclosure: my current game obsession is World of Warcraft. I have four characters, my favorite being a female human warrior.

Currently, I have many quests in process. Some of these I've made progess on, but it has been awhile since I've actively worked them. While I know what I've accomplished and what remains to be done, I'm struggling to remember where exactly I've seen those ghouls before, and which hill is the hermit's shack on?

Why can't I indicate to myself - within the game itself - when and where I think I've found something important? It's frustrating enough that I have to keep revisiting previously explored ground. But, like Hansel and Gretel, I want to retrace my steps. At times, I want to notate my experiences in game so that I don't have to repeat (or re-learn!) the same old stuff.

If this frustration continues for too much longer, I'm going to lose interest and abandon the game. Not a good outcome from a design perspective.

I'm serious,
Anne