Summit on Educational Games - Federation of American Scientists

“We spend millions of dollars on
game engines, and if the game is
not a hit, we typically just throw it
out, maybe try to salvage a few
pieces of code and algorithms.
These are massive development
budgets — five to fifteen million
dollars — and these are powerful
pieces of software. The secondary
market potential is, in my opinion,
huge, and [could] probably get
bargain rates from game
publishers and developers to buy
that software and adapt it to
applications that would teach
people how to lead, read, how to
do physics, how to learn math,
things of that nature.”
Lorne Lanning, OddWorld
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
High development costs and an uncertain market for educational innovations
make investments in developing complex learning games with high production
values too risky for both the video game and educational materials industries.
This adversity to risk-taking is deepened by past experience of firms that lost
investments in education technology markets. To spur innovation, a variety of
new business and product models should be encouraged for bringing learning
games and related technologies to the education and training marketplace.
Recommendations:
38 SUMMIT ON EDUCATIONAL GAMES
➣ Educational materials publishers should consider developing
classroom materials to support the use of commercial off-the-shelf
video and computer games for education and training purposes.
➣ Game companies should modify or license for modification their
current and older commercial games for use in education and
training.
➣ Game companies should look at education as a secondary market for
their technology. Game companies should identify technologies in
their portfolios — such as avatar technology or user interfaces — that
may be useful for educational applications and consider selling them
at low cost for use in education and training. Similarly, game
companies should license their game engines for non-competing
educational applications.
➣ Game companies, educational materials publishers, and educational
software producers should explore the economics of developing and
marketing “downloadable”, Shockwave-type educational games.
➣ Open source initiatives should be established to encourage a wide
range of individuals and companies to self-construct learning games
or components for them. Similarly, potential educational game
producers should consider how they could encourage learning
software “mod-makers”.
➣ Game companies, educational materials publishers, and educational
software producers should explore developing educational games and
simulations for home use.
Several barriers inhibit the markets for education games. These include:
market fragmentation (e.g., 16,000 K-12 school districts), schools’ unwillingness
to abandon text books in favor of technology-based materials, limited budgets for
educational materials other than text books, negative attitudes about video
games on the part of some parents and educators, and schools that are reluctant
to purchase educational technologies that have not proven their efficacy,
especially in terms of today’s education standards. However, some markets
could be aggregated to reduce educational game producers’ market risk, and
some markets may have lower barriers to entry.