In the Serious Games discussion list, Richard Wainess posted a thoughtful and eloquent reply to my request for research on the value (or not) of fantastic settings, in which he argued about the necessary learning design depth required in game design. I‘m primed for the discussion since I‘ve just been in the process of designing a learning game with a team. I thoroughly agree with him, and I’d highly recommend you find and read his response except for the fact that it appears there’s no archive. However, I had assumed the issues he‘s suggested, and penned this (slightly modified) response:

I think you’re missing the value of fantastic settings in effectively adding on top of what you say. We could set a task (e.g. negotiation) in several real-life environments, including with a car dealer, with the boss for a raise, with the kids about bed time (bad idea), etc. Or we could set it in space, for example, negotiating with suppliers for equipment, with civilizations for territory, with buyers for products, etc. Once we ensure we’ve put the necessary skills into the game, across differing contexts, and added the post-game reflection, is there a potential benefit for having a more compelling storyline? That trades off positively against the less direct transfer?

Yes, it takes different contexts to abstract and generalize, but let’s not neglect the value of motivation. So I agree it absolutely *has* to encompass the essential skills across contexts (broad enough to generalize to all relevant situations, and to no irrelevant ones). But there’s more than just that. My hypothesis is that embedding them into an exaggerated storyline may enhance the outcomes more than a real-world setting (and the more so the more general the skill).

If it’s not a storyline that the learner cares about, they’re not going to engage like they will when it really matters to them (e.g. the car *they* want to purchase). So we need that motivation, that emotional engagement as well. And that’s when we’re going to want to align the cognitive and game engagement. When people really have to perform, they have external motivation. Don’t we want to embed that in the experience as well?

I suggest that once we get the educational process down and vary the settings in context, that increasing the motivation through a compelling storyline that both is a meaningful application of the skill and is a storyline that the learners care about, will increase the outcome measure more than an more realistic, and dull, exercise. It’s testable, and I want the answer rather than just relying on my intuition (which will suffice for now; I too am trying to meet real needs, not just satisfy academic interests, but I’d feel far better knowing the answer one way or another).

My feeling is, rightly or wrongly, that not enough people get the depths he talks about, and on the other side, the argument I make above. I‘d like the answer, but in lieu of that, I‘m going to stick with my belief. (And later, Richard responded about how my response made him smile, as he’s starting just this research.)

A further claim from another respondent said that we just need to make the next Oregon Trail, which spurred this rejoinder:

If you don’t have the academic underpinning that Richard argues so eloquently for, all the cool window-dressing won’t lead to a thing. If you’ve infinite resources, you can iterate ’til you get the outcomes you suggest, but I’d prefer to draw upon principled bases and shorten the development process by systematically combining deep learning design with creative engagement design.

It almost appears that the few good edutainment titles were more a case of “even a blind pig finds a truffle once in a while” (a botched metaphor, to be sure, but personally relevant as how my friend described me finding my wife) than the result of a real understanding; there are too many bad titles out there. I don’t want to trust to chance that NASA’s MMO will be effective, nor burn through too much $$ to ensure it. I’d like to use what we know to help do it reliably, and repeatably. We owe it to ourselves and to society to demonstrate that serious games are a viable learning vehicle, not a hit or miss (or money sink) proposition.

Ok, so I‘m opinionated. What did you expect? I didn‘t spend, off and on, 25+ years doing learning game design to just throw up my hands. So, am I off my rocker?

I didn’t blog it, since I *was* it (3 times), but Brent did. Here’re his notes from the session.

On Thursday the eLearning Guild released their second Immersive Learning Simulation (read: serious games) research report. The important things are the new research results where people who said they were going to be doing ILS show results, a nice piece by Anne Derryberry debunking ILS myths, a practical piece by Kevin Corti looking at implementation, some more great case studies and interviews, and Angela van Barneveld’s updated list of resources and glossary. Disclaimer: it also includes a piece by me about ILS costs, and an unattributed (sigh) game design checklist I developed.

Coupled with the first report, including articles by Mark Oehlert on implementation, Clark Aldrich on the biz case, Jeff Johannigman on game design, and yours truly on ILS design, as well as the initial interviews and case studies, we’re talking a pretty good suite of information. If you’re thinking about serious games/immersive learning simulations (and you should be), you’d be well placed to look at this as a good source of information.

The Guild’s research program, superbly led by Steve Wexler, is a valuable contribution, and is to be lauded. Given the cost (free to Guild members, and associate members who fill out the survey), it’s hard to go wrong with the reports. Yes, it costs to get access to the data, but that’s real business value and it’s appropriate. I know it might seem self-serving to say so, but discounting me, the people on the reports are by and large the right ones, and I’ve seen the detailed work that goes into the surveys. I personally couldn’t say it if I didn’t really mean it; these are really good. Check ’em out!

My wife was away, so I had the kids and a big deliverable. Life was hectic until Friday, and we had the weekend to kill. Both kids were looking for downtime, so I had a chunk of time at my disposal. Now it was time to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time: I signed up for the free trial of World of Warcraft (which, in case you somehow don’t know, is *the* massively multiplayer online role playing game, or MMORPG, set in a ‘swords & sorcery’ fantasy).

Now, this isn’t a frivolous pursuit; as I tell the attendees at my (learning) game design workshop, to do this well you have to be on top of the different forms of media experiences and what makes them engaging, to have the broadest repertoire of sources to draw upon. I also say that it’s important to try games outside your area of comfort. Being ever mindful of financial issues, I note that a great way to do this is to try out the free trial demos of all the different games that are available. So, it was with serious intent that I started my trial…oh, the heck with it, I like fantasy, and I was looking forward to it. OK?

Now, it’s a bit of a confession to admit that this was my first MMORPG, but I also to get to admit that it wasn’t much different than I imagined. You move around, and fight monsters, gaining levels, attempting to get more powerful weapons and armor. That said, there are some very interesting features, and some frustrations.

The world is quite simply gorgeously realized. It may not rival the best console games, but it’s certainly stunning, particularly as it’s playing over a network! And the entrance for new players is quite reasonable. They do suggest you read the manuals (which I’ve yet to find), but they give you hints as you go along, and set you a series of quests that develop your skills. The nice thing about the quests is that they’re reasonably well set in the world.

It’s quite impressive, BTW, just how much they can cram into a small area.   You don’t go far to be questing after new goals, even surrounded by a bunch of other folks doing the same.   It doesn’t feel crowded, but right next door to a previous quest is a new one.   You didn’t realize that just beyond that rise, there was a whole new camp of evil creatures, yet when you make that traverse it’s totally plausible that they were there all the time.

The difficulty goes pretty linearly, the farther from your home you go.   The world is constrained to have you doing things in this area, then this next, one, and each gets gradually   harder.   If you go too far too fast, you’ll die.   Of course, dying is of no real consequence, either, you can go back and revive your corpse and keep playing (and it’s not morbid, really).

It *is* a multiplayer world, with all that conveys. There are other people clearly doing the same quests you are, and you can all do them independently, but you do realize that it’s a ‘setup’. And there are the predictable puerile folks doing things like creating inappropriate names and yelling obscenities. However, as a trial user I couldn’t join groups, and the quests were capable of being done alone. I could see how coordination would help on some I’m currently at right now, but I worked out one on my own via some strategic thinking.

There are only a couple downsides. For one, some of the interface elements are not ‘safe’ enough. I was trying to look through my stuff to trade and sell, and I think I bought something and then sold it back again before I realized it. Unfortunately, the price you get is less than the price you pay, so it was a very quick act of unintended philanthropy. It’s also surprisingly hard to find good information about certain constraints. As I mentioned, the manual is hard to find, and it’s tough to find answers to specific questions. I’ll admit that I have a tendency to charge ahead (at least, in games ;) and just try things, which isn’t bad but may lead me to inappropriate actions that I’d rather have warnings about at the beginning. And it’s a very rich world.

It’s well done, and it’s clear what a big budget will let you do. I think that there are some real good ideas in helping new folks (newbies) get up to speed, when you have a large investment in time to pay off. and, it really is fun, but ‘hard fun’, and I’m going back ’til my trial is over.   Then I’ll stop. Other things to do, and no need to acquire yet another time sink. But I’m glad it’s a limited time trial!

The eLearning Guild’s report on Immersive Learning Simulations (disclaimer: I wrote one of the articles) had not only the written component, but data put in by over a 1000 organizational elearning folks, and available as an option. In their ongoing efforts to track the market, they’re looking for people to update their responses (and we’ve added a few new questions).

I want to encourage this, as if you become an associate member (free), and fill out the survey, you get a free copy of the report, with not only my contribution on design, but Mark Oehlert’s on implementation, Clark Aldrich on the business case, Jeff Johannigman on game design, Angela Van Barneveld’s glossary and resources, interviews and more. Free! Plus points you can redeem for stuff.

Here’s what you should do:

• Go to www.eLearningGuild.com <http://www.eLearningGuild.com>
• Make sure you are logged in
• Click on “Update My Profile” from your MY ACCOUNT menu
• Select the survey called “Simulations, Games, and Immersion Learning” from the menu on the left, complete the survey, and SUBMIT it.

If you’re not a member, you can just join as an associate (free).   Note: They also want more people to complete the Simulation Tools survey they didn‘t get quite enough responses to prepare a comprehensive analysis in the Authoring and Development Tools report. Again, fill out the survey, get a free copy of the report. I expect there’ll be a similar update to mobile later in the year.

Admittedly, the data access is extra cost, but if you want benchmarking or product reviews, it’s likely to be the best most unbiased data available! I get nothing for you doing this, BTW, I’m just aware of how hard they’re working to really do this right, and think it’s worth promoting on it’s own merits.

On Sunday I drove down to the San Francisco studios of KALW 91.7 FM here in the Bay Area to talk with Marty Nemko about simulations and games. He runs a show about workplace issues (and anything else he wants to talk about), has years of experience, and turns out is quite well known. He’d gotten interested in simulations and games, and asked me to appear to talk about the issues for the first half hour of his show. (The second half hour he answers callers and gives 3 minute ‘career makeovers’; I stuck around to listen and it’s very interesting.)

Now, I’ve been on the radio before, interviewed over the phone from Tasmania when I was living in Australia. And I’d been in a TV studio before (for reasons I can no longer recall!), and was interviewed for TV in a makeshift studio while in Colombia. But this was my first visit to a working radio studio with a live broadcast. Two guys were holding a philosophy talk show before Marty’s show, while we talked and then taped Marty’s intro for the next week.

We’d intended to have him go through simulations during the session, with him verbalizing the experience, but it didn’t work out well, so we ended up just talking about simulations. We talked through lots of issues in the half hour. You can actually listen to it as they record it and Marty makes it available (NB: it requires Real Player). It’s always strange to hear one’s voice played back.

He welcomed me to ask questions, and my main one was “what do you to keep from getting too nervous”. It’s funny, I speak alot and am usually not nervous, but for some reason the novelty of the format caused a few butterflies. His answer was insightful, about how in the end it really won’t matter. You always make mistakes and wish you said things differently but it won’t really make a difference in the bigger picture. Quite right.   I started a bit tentatively, but got going.   Also forgot it was being broadcast (and recorded) and talked with less diplomacy than would’ve been ideal.   C’est la vie.

Overall, it was quite the learning experience. It’s part of my learning strategy to push myself into new situations, and this certainly qualified! Interestingly, too often we forget our old technologies in the excitement of new ones (people seem to forget about discussion boards, but they’re great for certain types of eCommunity, as is happening with ITFORUM). Radio’s a case in point, as we know from podcasts sometimes audio is a great channel.