Where It’s At: An Anecdotal Look at the Stages of Games-based Learning Adoption in the eLearning Sector - Kevin Corti
Serious games - to use the rapidly emerging term for the application of computer game and simulation approaches to training and education – is a market space that is currently at the early stages of the Technology Adoption Life Cycle (TALC) but one that is gaining momentum at a pace that often takes even those of us that are in it by surprise. My motivation for penning this article is to attempt to summarize the stages that vendors in this space (and for that matter our clients) are working through to encourage others in both the supply and demand space. It takes, after all, a critical mass to build an enduring industry that is sustainable and which can really push the boundaries of what is possible. I have drawn mainly upon personal and anecdotal experience and I do not operate under the pretense of creating herein a body of work that will stand up to significant academic rigor. I hope, though, to both stimulate further thought and to help others to rationalize the current state of this fledgling industry. Just to be clear: I have deliberately limited the scope of this article to the application of digital games and simulations to adult training and personal development in the public and private sectors. I am, of course, aware of the tremendous level of activity that is propelling the application of serious games within the military and medical sectors. That is not, however, my area of experience so I’ll leave discussion about market development in these areas to others better qualified than I. In “Crossing the Chasm”, Geoffry Moore described six stages of market development or, more accurately, six types of ‘customer adopter types’ which he categorized by their willingness to purchase technology products at a certain point in the life cycle of those products. I lack sufficient (formal) grounding in such weighty matters as to add genuine new thought to these concepts. I can, however, relate the observations that my own company and others have made and are still making as this infant industry struggles to reach adolescence. Herein (below) is my humble attempt at doing this. Stage 0: “We can do this better” People from inside the game industry and many from outside it take a long hard look at the way that technologies are being applied to training and education. They conclude that the video game industry is, in the main, extremely good at captivating an audience that can quite easily choose to go do something else and spend their money on something else. They then compare that to eLearning, CBT and edutainment and realize that there lies an industry that has a captive audience – employees and students generally have to take the course whether they want to or not – but which is serving up a diatribe of extremely dull, linear and pretty ineffective bore ware. Said individual thus hand in the resignations, cash in their pension funds and obtain second mortgages on the family home and excitedly start up a games-based learning or serious games venture. Stage 1: “Doh! Referring to ‘games’ is getting us nowhere!” ‘Work for hire’ studios, boxed product vendors and technology providers alike all realize - hopefully fairly quickly - that using terms such as ‘game’, ‘play’ and ‘fun’ leads to many a slammed door (both virtually and physically) in the great halls of the blue chip/Fortune 1000 company training department. Before 2002 there were very few companies that were brave enough (or should that be stupid enough?) to pitch innovative learning technology solutions ‘where your staff can play games, have fun and be, like, engaged dude’. Terms such as ‘interactive, experiential, goal-based, learning pedagogies with a constructivist foundation that fit all learning styles’ were manifest as GBL providers sought a protocol that they could use to establish effective dialogue with potential customers. Key takeaway: The investment that you have made spending nocturnal hours mastering WoW, Doom, Sim City and the Unreal editor will be of no commercial value to you until you can relate the central characteristics and capabilities of computer games to mundane (but important) organizational needs in a terminology that the customer understands. You are in foreign lands now so learn to speak the language! Stage 2: “Sales meetings with the super-impressed interns” Vendors/studios start to receive numerous unsolicited ‘sales inquiries’, get very excited, create terrifically impressive revenue forecasts and spend an inordinate amount of time on a series of ‘opportunities’ characterized by complex sales cycles that never end. This stage is where we start to reap the initial benefits of our networking, PR and unrelenting self-belief. The trouble is it has a tendency to lead companies down numerous blind alleys that contain only ‘techno junkies’ who have possess seemingly endless enthusiasm and time but who also have a correspondingly low ability to place orders or commission projects. Vendors take comfort that the message is at least finding some reception within their target private and public sector organizations but realize, after much frustration, that getting to the senior decision makers is going to take something extra. Key takeaway: The reason that you cannot close the deal is, well….because there is no deal to be had. There is a kind of person in every large organization (particularly universities I find) that takes delight in being associated with and/or becoming knowledgeable about COOL STUFF just in case it actually ends up working so that they can do the whole ‘I told you so’ thing to their peers. These wannabe gurus will suck up your valuable time, give you false confidence and just damn well get in the way of developing a proper business. If you detect a wannabe guru ask them straight out whether they are someone that can secure budget in the next three months. If they offer anything other than a solidly convincing ‘Yes!’ then move on.
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