Our last seminar on serious games was quite enjoyable. Dr. Pippa Avery asked us to brainstorm a serious game that we would like to make. Our class consists of individuals with fairly diverse backgrounds including computer science, digital media, traditional arts, journalism, and myself, the lone business/marketing student.
My experiences and coursework through the College of Business has exposed me to more than my fair share of “serious games.” In MKT 316 we played New Shoes, which was a marketing simulation game surrounding a shoe company. The focus of the game was on marketing principles such as forecasting demand, deciding on advertising and promotion budgets and managing product quality in both domestic and foreign markets.
In MGT 496 this semester, we are playing yet another shoe simulator called BSG Online (I’m not sure where everyone’s fascination with shoe simulation games is coming from) that focuses on building and executing strategies for a multinational shoe conglomerate. This game is much more complex in that, each company/team is able to control the amount of production, product support, imports/exports, and product development, on top of the marketing principles covered in the other game. This game has so many options that if you are actually able to grasp the cause-effect relationship your decisions have on the game, you’d be well on your way to understanding what is needed to execute a global, multinational strategy within an organization.
While these games have educational value, they are certainly lacking in engagement. Yes, they are serious games but who says they can’t be fun as well? After all, a game is meant to be fun and it allows learning to happen through hands-on interactions. If there isn’t going to be some element of fun and enjoyment, why use the medium at all?
Our Game
Our group began to discuss ideas for a game we would like to create. I’ve always loved playing MMORPG games (a past addiction of mine) including Star Wars Galaxies and World of Warcraft because they are so complex and offer a wide variety of roles for players and encourages interaction with others in order for you to be successful.
Our idea builds on a world such as those in MMORPGs and SecondLife and basically, after building a character in the game, you start at the bottom of the social ladder in the community. Your actions influence your rise (or fall) along the social ladder, much as we experience in real life. This concept is already seen in a game like The Sims but by adding the MMORPG aspect you again encourage interaction with others to achieve synergy. The actions of yourself and others will hopefully bring value to the both parties and the community as a whole (1+1=3). Ok. So far, this sounds like games that are already out there and most of them are not overt teaching tools. Our biggest addition to the genre is the idea of a “current event engine.”
The current event engine will generate outside forces that will once again influence the actions and behaviors of the players. There is a basic human need to collect things which can be seen in games such as Pokemon, Animal Crossing, and most MMORPGs, but how would that need change when faced with real-world scenarios like economic depressions, epidemics, and more subtle changes like the changes in political leaders and more. You could be playing the game one day and be on your way to becoming a movie star, a corporate bigwig, or a hermit in the forest and the next day, the environment could change.
This game would be fairly complex to build in such a manner that the game does not become predictable or repetitive. Obviously we would not want the same influencing events happening over and over again and they should occur to a degree that is fairly realistic (we won’t have multiple economic recessions in a year, get hit by hurricanes every day, etc.) Fortunately, not everything that influences our game’s environment and characters needs to be negative.
Other Ideas
Considering my experience with business simulation games, there is a lot of room for improvement in terms of making a game that allows for learning of business strategy, marketing, and sales without being absolutely mind-numbing. The interactivity of BSG Online is actually limited by the technology it is built on. The entire game is built on Microsoft Excel using complex series of views, macros, and sheets to create a game. Games like Roller Coaster Tycoon allow people of all ages to “learn” the mechanics of running a business but in a very oversimplified sense in order to appeal to a mass audience. A more complex game, a mixture of Roller Coaster Tycoon and BSG Online would prove to be a very engaging and powerful teaching tool with business schools.
