Summit on Educational Games - Federation of American Scientists

➣ Educational materials publishers should consider developing
classroom materials to support the use of off-the-shelf commercial
video and computer games for education and training purposes.
➣ Educational materials publishers, educational software producers,
and game companies should explore the economics of developing and
marketing browser-based and “downloadable” educational games.
This type of game is often simpler and shorter in length of play than
retail boxed computer and video games. These games have lower
production values and, as a result, take less time and capital to
develop, offering less risk to funders and producers.
➣ Training materials and training software publishers should explore
developing learning games and simulations to improve corporate
training productivity and reduce time-to-competency, especially
where there is a company and industry-wide training need or need for
training a key employee group.
➣ Training materials and training software publishers should explore
opportunities for developing training games to serve the nationwide
workforce development system, overseen by the U.S. Department of
Labor. The Labor Department should identify where there are
common training needs across the workforce development system
and, thus, represent a potentially large market.
STRUCTURE OF THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY
The video game industry basically comprises three types of companies: developers, publishers, and
console manufacturers.
Developers are the people or companies who create the games. Development companies can be
independent, part owned or wholly owned by a publisher or console manufacturer. Typically,
independent developers are funded by a publisher to create a game. Commercial video game
developers can range in size from fairly modest, e.g. 25–50 employees, to fairly large, e.g. 100 or
more employees.
Publishers both develop games internally and fund external development by independent developers,
and then bring the finished product to market. The majority of commercial video games are funded,
published and distributed by the major publishers. In addition to funding and managing the
development of games, publishers are responsible for marketing, public relations, sales and
manufacturing of the game. Large video game publishers also distribute the games they publish,
while some smaller publishers hire distribution companies (or larger video game publishers) to
distribute the games they publish.
Console manufacturers make video game consoles and handheld devices such as Sony’s Playstation,
Microsoft’s Xbox 360, and Nintendo’s Game Cube and Game Boy. Console makers also develop and
publish software for their hardware systems, and license third parties to publish software to run on
their systems.
SUMMIT ON EDUCATIONAL GAMES 9