Why making educational games is Hard

"Never all in the one company..."

This educational / serious games panel describes exactly why it's hard to do Serious games: you're not just trying to please a publisher - or just an end player - but also a whole host of very Interested Parties who somehow have a stake in what you're doing.

The moderator introduced the panel by suggesting that anyone interested in making serious games should ask themselves three key questions before starting anything, and to repeat asking these questions throughout any project:

• What are we teaching?
• How will we know if they've learned it?
• Who needs to know that they've learned it?

The above slide describes all the people required to the project in order to answer those three simple questions. Just question three usually means "a whole host of post-project data analysis".

"Games are software development projects: most good games are the result of rapid, iterative development. This is incompatible with upfront planning. As a sponsor, you have to think about how you can accomodate the uncertainty that comes with RID."

So true.

Comments

[Hamish]

Is it really part of rapid, iterative development? It seems to me that it happens pretty slowly, and it gets slower every day. There's so much that you are obliged to plan, and so much that you have to fine-tune. If Jonathan Blow is to be believed, we have an entire level of fine tuning that no-one has ever managed to adequately do. Isn't it just true that it's hard to influence people at a fundamental and functional level of design?

[knockheads]

Half of these are not absolutely necessary. Subject matter expert(s), designer(s), programmers and testers and we're in business.