Unleashing the Untapped Potential: The Failure of Educational Game Design

In 2013, a late-night gamification webinar caught my attention at 2 am. Dan White, CEO of Filament Games, captivated the audience with his insights and showed some beautiful games during his presentation. The Filament Games company is renowned for creating visually captivating and immersive educational games. This provides students with interactive and enjoyable educational experiences. Cheers and appreciation filled the chat box, and during the Q&A session, I couldn't resist posing a question that had been bothering me for a while. As a result, I brought up the issue of game time versus learning outcomes, highlighting the need for a tighter ratio. All, including Dan, appreciated the question. He promised to reply via email. Dan's email response to my inquiry was insightful and eye-opening for anyone interested in creating educational games.

Hi Dan, 29 Oct 2013

Learning outcomes are crucial. However, I've noticed that some games, like Prisoner of Echo, can be challenging to understand, resulting in less productive time. As experienced developers ourselves, we find designing games for an entire curriculum to be a daunting task.

In particular, I've been struggling with Prisoner of Echo, despite my proficiency in physics. Please provide me with clear instructions on how to play the game. Video tutorials could be more helpful to me, and I'm eager to overcome my challenges. We thank you in advance.

Best Regards,

The response in the form of an email I received was genuinely enlightening and offered valuable insights. Here's what Dan had to say:

1 Nov 2013

Kalpesh, I completely understand your concern about the time-to-learning ratio in educational games. Prisoner Echo was an exciting game but a failed experiment. As developers with over 60 games, we have realised that some games work better than others. While some people love Prisoner of Echo, others struggle with it.

Building enough game content to cover an entire curriculum is a significant challenge. However, it's important to note that it is only sometimes necessary. Games can be strategically used at critical junctures within a course and complemented by more traditional materials to extend the learning experience.

Dan White, CEO

Filament Games

The response from Dan White, CEO of Filament Games, shed light on the complexities of educational game design and the need to strike a balance between time spent and learning outcomes. This exchange opened my eyes to the nuances and challenges game developers face in the educational space.

In the realm of educational games, there exists a distinction between gamification and game-based learning. Gamification involves incorporating game elements and mechanics into non-game contexts, whereas game-based learning focuses on using games as educational tools. Understanding this difference is crucial when exploring the learning-to-time ratio in educational games.

The learning-to-time ratio measures the efficiency and effectiveness of educational games by considering the time invested in playing and the learning outcomes achieved. It aims to ensure that the time spent playing games translates into meaningful learning experiences. Striking the right balance is essential to maximise the benefits of educational games and make them valuable educational tools.

Difference between Gamification and Game-Based Learning:

Gamification involves incorporating game elements such as badges, points, and leaderboards into non-game contexts to motivate and engage learners. It utilises game mechanics to enhance user experience and drive desired behaviours. On the other hand, game-based learning involves using actual games as educational tools, where gameplay serves as a means of delivering learning content. The focus is on leveraging the inherent educational value of games to facilitate learning.

Maximising Efficiency and Effectiveness: The Learning-to-Time Ratio:

The learning-to-time ratio balances the time spent playing educational games and learning outcomes. In other words, it measures how efficiently and effectively learners utilise their time during gameplay to achieve the desired educational goals. When implementing educational games, it is crucial to ensure that the time spent playing them translates into meaningful learning outcomes. This requires careful design and integration of game elements that directly contribute to the learning objectives, optimising the learning experience within the available time frame.

Reasons for the Failure of Educational Games:

1. Misunderstanding gamification vs game-based learning: Differentiating between gamification and game-based learning is crucial to avoid confusion and select the appropriate approach based on desired learning outcomes.

2. Learning from failure: Educational games embrace failure as a learning opportunity to foster a growth mindset and resilience. Through these games, students learn how to solve problems and overcome setbacks. As a result of this mindset shift, students can embrace challenges and achieve success.

3. Lack of meaningful rewards: Students should receive significant rewards from educational games. Redeemable points, empowering abilities, and shareable badges can all be part of this. Motivation and engagement are enhanced by meaningful rewards, resulting in a more effective learning experience.

4. Poor game design: Well-designed games that align with learning objectives and effectively engage learners are necessary to achieve desired educational outcomes.

5. Insufficient guidance and instructions: Clear instructions on gameplay mechanics, objectives, and strategies are vital for learners to understand and navigate educational games effectively.

6. Lack of integration and support: Adequate support from educators, administrators, and stakeholders, including training, resources, and guidance, is necessary to implement educational games and their impact on learning outcomes successfully.

7. Not good graphically rich, captivating content: Visually appealing graphics and captivating content are essential to capture learners' attention and maintain engagement in educational games.

8. Encouraging self-directed learning: Educational games should foster exploration, problem-solving, and critical thinking, empowering learners to take ownership of their learning process.

9. Lack of alignment with the learning process: Seamless integration of educational games into the learning process is essential to provide meaningful learning experiences and maintain learner engagement.?

10. Multiplayer features for collaboration: Incorporating multiplayer elements in educational games can promote collaboration, communication, and social interaction among learners.

11. Catering to diverse gamer profiles: Considering different gamer types and incorporating appropriate game mechanics to accommodate individual preferences and needs like leaderboard, badges and surprising bonuses.

By addressing these factors, educational game developers can optimize game design and implementation, leading to an enhanced learning experience and maximising the student learning-to-time ratio.

Conclusion: Embracing the Promise of Educational Games and Gamification:

Despite the challenges in designing and implementing educational games, they promise to enhance learning outcomes. By understanding the learning-to-time ratio, distinguishing between gamification and game-based learning, and addressing the common reasons for failure, we can leverage the benefits of educational games to create engaging and compelling learning experiences. By striking the right balance between learning and time constraints, educational games can transform education and empower learners to thrive in their educational journeys.

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