Serious Games add so much value!
This is probably the most common argument you might hear when looking at serious games. Everyone in the industry is screaming this out loud, but that’s because it’s true.
1. They are involved
You may think that serious games will only appeal to young gamers, but in fact smartly designed solutions should appeal to people of all ages and backgrounds, regardless of whether they have played games before or not. And here’s why: a well-crafted serious game gives the user something to care about – a goal they want to achieve; an objective that is relevant to the business or situation the user is currently in. A serious games designer will respond to the motivations of the user and place these at the center of the story.
Games also present information as nested problems; they will give the user a goal, but the user must be actively involved in the scenario to work out how to achieve the goal. Serious games also use interesting characters and reward loops to help you move forward. Users will start to believe the scenario and become emotionally involved in seeing it through.
2. They are a “safe environment”
Do most students have a place where they can practice their skills in a realistic environment? Unfortunately, unless you’re a pilot or nuclear engineer, the answer will most likely be “no.” Most companies don’t have a simulated business with real people and market data for their staff to practice on. Serious games can be the missing link between knowledge and practical application at work.
Therefore, serious games can allow users to practice the skills or methodologies they have read about or go “off-piste” with their own strategy and actually see the consequences of their actions without any impact on the business. In fact, in a virtual environment, this practice will greatly benefit the business as it will reduce the number of mistakes your staff will make in the real world.
3. They work according to the laws of learning
Serious games are designed to hook us up and appeal to our brains; their designs are mapped to how we learn intrinsically. Since the main goal of a serious game is to develop new knowledge and skills and ultimately bring about a change in behaviour, they must align with how we learn.
We base our designs on the laws of learning. This is quite a complicated topic, so let’s take a look at one of the basics of learning. Looking back in time, in every culture on Earth we hear the process of telling stories to pass on knowledge to new generations. Stories create emotional connections, increasing the likelihood of retention. In today’s society we use stories for entertainment, books, movies and games, and they all appeal to us through the clever use of stories, characterizations and the epic challenge, but they are rarely present when it comes to learning.
The difference between reading an educational book or watching an educational movie and playing an educational game is that you, as the protagonist, take control and all the action revolves around you. You make the choices, the consequences happen to you, and because the choices are wrapped up in a story you want to succeed in, you create an even stronger emotional bond with those actions. We even show physiological responses when we fail at games; it sometimes feels so real that our brains can’t tell the difference at the most basic biological level.
Being in the middle of the action, you learn at your own pace. You don’t have to keep up with 25 others who have other jobs to return to. You evaluate your actions in your own time. You can fail as many times as it takes to understand the solution.
This ability to learn at your own pace is due to the use of pacing in designing these interventions. For example, when designing an eLearning course, there is a specific amount of content, a certain number of screens, a certain number of words per screen, some audio, animation and if you’re lucky multiple choice questions to add some variety. In a serious game, however, the content is indistinguishable from the actions and choices you have to make, which is why you only progress and succeed when you have mastered the knowledge. The content is carefully monitored to ensure that you understand – not just remember, but really understand – before proceeding. Because you understand, you notice new information, and you are able to pull information from your long-term memory and not just from your working memory to solve problems.
4. They are reusable
A serious game should not be judged by the number of students who complete the game, but by how students use the application again. Serious games, by their very nature, are designed to be played multiple times. They are generally non-linear and allow a learner to explore different paths and different consequences. This leads to students getting a well-rounded picture of a situation or problem. For the games we host ourselves, we know that users play our games on average 4.3 times. This repetition reinforces learning and through the use of scores we can see that students get better the more they play.
Serious games can also be very flexible; you can use them in many ways. You can apply a context to the learning experience and ask your students to focus on different learning objectives, or for example to play with a certain mindset in a certain way. Or you can apply the same application to different stages of the learning life cycle, for example as a precursor to a course and as a refresher course in six months.
5. You can roll out specialist knowledge to a wider audience
Serious games are great for working complex topics, such as six sigma, that have traditionally been part of an intensive classroom course (which can be expensive to roll out to an entire organization) into a case study game, so that the learning is accessible to a wider audience. Yes, they train to a lower level, but at least they will begin to understand the same lessons your senior management is learning so that your organization speaks the same language from top to bottom.
6. They are cost effective
The cost effectiveness of serious games is achieved due to some of the reasons I have already discussed. First, they can be reused many times per student and across the organization in different contexts, and they can contain complex content and reach a wider audience so that your message is heard by everyone in the organization. OK, so there can be upfront development costs, but if a serious game is built correctly, they can be tweaked and tweaked for years to make sure they stay up to date.
7. You can capture data!
Because you make a lot (and I mean a lot!) of decisions in a game, and those decisions say a lot about your thought process, you can capture both the journey to a certain point and the final result. Imagine getting all that data from everyone on your leadership team, your middle managers, or your entire organization. You can map out your organization’s strengths and weaknesses and develop an informed strategy to address them, or you can go down to the individual learner level and start building a truly personalized learning plan based on their actual performance (which can be measured). by, for example, situational judgment games).
8. They are expected
Serious games and interactive learning applications reach a stage where new employees expect them. Companies using these approaches are often seen as forward-thinking in learning and development and will attract the top talent. These methodologies also help retain talent by ensuring that your internal learning and development is fun and that your employees want to keep learning.
9. They complement other forms of learning
As I mentioned above, games can be the missing link in your learning and development toolkit – you need a piece of knowledge, you still need on-the-job training, reinforcement, etc., and serious games fill these other forms of learn brilliantly. A study from MIT shows that your attention during a lecture is lower than when you sleep, and both the new generation of employees and those already working in your organization are looking for new ways to learn. More than likely they have already started learning outside of work, for example through MOOCs or YouTube. Serious games are just one aspect to consider as part of your digital learning strategy.
10. Because they work!
Research by Sitzmann in the article titled “A meta-analytical study of the effectiveness of computer-based simulation gameslooked at the educational effectiveness of computer-based simulation games compared to a comparison group on a comprehensive range of training outcomes, particularly focusing on post-training outcomes. Data was collected from 6476 participants, ranging from college students (undergraduate and graduate) and employees. Sitzmann found that self-efficacy, declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and retention results suggest that training outcomes are superior for trainees taught with simulation games compared to the comparison group: “Overall, declarative knowledge was 11% higher for trainees taught with simulation games than a comparison group; procedural knowledge was 14% higher; retention was 9% higher; and self-efficacy was 20% higher.”
In our own research we have seen:
- 50% fewer errors in complex engineering processes
- 100% reduction of distracted driving events in fleet driver training
- 25% productivity improvement for global auditors
All of this contributes to saved budgets and happier end customers. What’s not to love!
Totem learning
Totem is a learning company. We combine behavioral psychology, technology and creative expertise to help companies walk through the walls that stand between them and where they want to be.
Originally published on www.totemlearning.com.