Serious Games cost/price models

[Kevin Corti]

There has been an interesting - an at times slightly heated - debate on the serious game listserv which the folks at Digital Mill administer (subscribe at www.seriousgames.org) about the pricing models for 'serious games' that was initiated by Patrick Dunn (a member of this site). I have posted Patrick's original question below in order to mirror the debate on this site which I think is far more technically accessible than the Digital Mill version.

My contention is that the term 'Serious Game' has grown to encompass such a huge range of different technical, creative and instructional variances and is in a business space that encompasses so many different business models and vendor propositions, that it has become very complicated for potential end-users to get their heads around what it will cost them to do what and how.

With that in mind, and with an acute awareness of how limited the average training/HR budget holder's time is, I really think that we need to boil this down into a more easily described set of offerings with relevant cost/price models. This has to be an great area for debate.

Patrick's original post is below followed by my own response:

In the “mainstream” e-learning industry, whether we like it or not, content producers and clients are used to quoting costs in $/hour. i.e.the price for developing an hour of learner seat time. I know this is crude, but it’s what many large organisations are comfortable with.
Now – one of the things that’s holding back some of the clients (and content providers) I’m talking to about games is their perception of games development as extremely expensive. But their starting point is usually something like: “if we developed immersive, high-end games using our current tools, it would be fantastically expensive”. Obviously, this is the wrong starting point. It’s like saying, “if we used a text editor to produce our courses, they’d be too expensive…”; well, yes, they would be; so use an authoring tool…

Talking to games developers, on the other hand, I’m hearing a huge range of costs and cost models, including the traditional seat time model, with costs ranging from $23k to 250k pr hour. Given the innate conservatism of large organisations, I’d really like to hear peoples’ experiences of making potential buyers comfortable with new cost models for purchasing learning experiences in the form of serious games. In terms of the stuff I’ve been involved in, a few years ago I helped out on a big job for one of the global consultancies and it cost just under $1million; on the other hand I’m now doing little jobs for a few thousand bucks.

I think sorting out cost models for SGs that large organisations are happy with will be one of the tipping points for SG acceptance.

Any thoughts would be welcome.

Many thanks

Patrick

My reply:

Subject: RE: SG cost models From: [e-mail]
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 11:53:06 +0000
X-Message-Number: 1

I'm with Kenton on this one.

Overall cost is (somewhat) irrelevant in the corporate learning space. A more tangible metric is cost/hour/learner which, if the numbers of learners stack up, can render a large project relatively inexpensive per user especially if that can be amortised over an extended period i.e. not just that budgetary year.

That metric is easy to work with - the bean counters can do that - but it is still a requirement (of the sales process) to address the relative quality differential between Serious Games/GBL/Interactive Learning Sims middle road solutions, such as complex branching tree role plays and ordinary eLearning.

If the client doesn't understand and accept that quality differential i.e. the advantages (and trust you as a supplier!) then the metric still paints high end (more expensive) approaches in a bad light.

There are often a whole range of secondary advantages to a SG/GBL approach that add weight to the argument (e.g. public pereption of the company is being innovative and forward-thinking) but these, in themselves, will not win the argument and that takes us back to what Patrick is trying to grapple with; that in the corporate learning space we need to be able to reduce proposed solutions down to very easy to justify numbers. Remember that internal advocates within a coroprate training department have, right now, to put their neck on the line if they attach their name to a Serious Game project. If they are going to put their careers at risk a SG vendor had better give them the ROI data they need or the project will never go agead.

We're doing a large (by corporate learning standards) project for a Big 4 accountancy firm in the US right now. Obviously I can't quantify overall budget, but if I plug in the numbers of users, the allocated 'learning time' (6 hrs) and assume a 4 year usage then the cost/user/hour of learning time reduces to less than $10. That sounds very good to me.....perhaps we should increase our pricing??

:-)

Kevin Corti, CEO,
PIXELearning Limited
[e-mail]
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kevincorti
SKYPE: pixelearning

[Ken Rigby (MellaniuM, Tele3dworld)]

What Tele3DWorld and Virtual Real Worlds can do for you.

Virtual Real Worlds (VRWs) a breakthrough technology that will forever reshape learning, entertainment, and business. You'd have to try very hard to avoid exposure to the virtual real world phenomenon these days. Virtual Real Worlds are going to be the new-big thing.

VRW enthusiasts spend many hours a day surrounded by 0's and 1's. It's not out of bounds to ask how much of this virtual stuff is real. After all, we don't want to find ourselves in the position of the chairman of the company who passed up the option to buy Alexander Graham Bell's telephone, saying, "Who wants to hear people talk?".

VRWs have too much potential to ignore. But Virtual Real Worlds should not be used to just automate existing learning approaches and models: A virtual classroom with virtual students and a virtual PowerPoint presentation for learning in VRWs is not the answer. To avoid these pitfalls, let's explore how VRWs work, how they are being used in education and learning, the major players, and what the future holds.

What do people do in VRWs?

First, VRWs will replace other forms of learning. We believe the thoughtful application of VRW technology will significantly enhance the experience and transfer of knowledge, learning, education, training, etc. We encourage you to examine this technology with fresh eyes and begin by asking what sensibilities it can bring to the learner that aren't found in traditional educational technology. So instead of asking "How do I build a virtual classroom?" we might ask, "What can this technology do that will enhance the experience that my current learning technology portfolio cannot?".

Here are the VRW salient points that have been identified so far:

* The Sense of Self. First, a bit of terminology. Your virtual representation is called an avatar. Your avatar is your persona, totally under your control and with preprogrammed body language. As opposed to games or simulations where people have limited freedom to set their own course, your avatar can walk, run, swim, drive wherever he or she chooses within the 3D environment. This experience occurs in a real time 3D environment with true perspective. More importantly, the more you experience a VRWs the more you and your will avatar bond. In short, you are your avatar when in a VRW, and your emotional attachment to that avatar will surprise you!

* The Death of Distance. Avatars reside in a boundless virtual 3D landscape in which they can teleport through cyberspace from one place (VRW) to another. There is no absolute distance in VRWs except when necessary to enhance the experience. VRWs 3D landscape can be home to stores, museums, businesses, shops, houses, office buildings, campuses, playing fields, etc. all constructed using high resolution textures and constructional detail. The 3D landscape in a VRW is persistent; shut down your computer and the VRW will be there when you return.

* The Power of Presence, Sense of Space. Avatars interact with one another through the actions of their real-life masters. Avatars converse, collaborate, attend concerts, and meetings, listen to presentations, explore, visit virtual buildings, museums, art galleries, or sculptures, VRWs encourage social groups to form. People often treat computers as they would other people. They like a computer that praises them. If humans treat beige boxes as kin, surely they can identify with animated humanoids in a VRW.

* The Pervasiveness of Practice. Walk around a VRW for a while and you'll come to the conclusion that it's not only a virtual social world, but a world that fosters a culture of collaborative learning through experience;

* The Enrichment of Experience. Another sensibility VRWs provide is the enrichment of experience. In saying this we don't just mean that VRWs are better. We are saying that it is possible to have experiences in these spaces that are just not possible in the real world. VRWs provide the ability to exist in an augmented reality or dream like state. Maybe you are confined to a wheelchair, or bedridden and bored and suddenly you can virtually dance the night away or re-visit memorable places, or perhaps you want to interact with your design colleagues around the world to check out a virtual prototype of a car, a new chip design layout, a battlefield situation, or a crystal molecule structure. This platform enables people to experience life in new and engaging ways irrespective of their location, creed, color, age, ability, etc. The possibilities are endless and only limited by your imagination.

Major corporations are creating a lot of buzz around VRWs. It's new, and compared to the alternatives, it's cheap. However, VRWs answers our initial questions about how to improve learning and education in general using VRWs.

How are corporations using VRWs for learning?

Corporations are actively exploring virtual real worlds, drawing on the VRW capabilities for:

* A new level of always-on 24/7, real time connectivity for collaboration and social purpose; * Empowering both customer and employee groups;

* Making informal viral learning a core mechanism of transformation.

A few organizations are betting VRWs will evolve to enable for much broader change by experimenting with training, media communication, conferencing, medicine, and specialist education.

As with most breakthrough/pioneering technologies, VRWs are somewhat a solution looking for a problem. VRWs provide a platform for collaboration, community, education, and e-commerce. Aside from the obvious entertainment appeal, what's new here?

The most powerful learning technology ever invented is conversation, VRWs entice people to converse naturally using surround sound and a simulated atmosphere. Time will bring EAX voice, more expressive avatars, and even higher texture and mesh resolution, AI, and physics to the VRWs. The virtual real world environment will function like the real world, conversation flow-making it easier to mentor, coach, teach, brainstorm, discuss, and manipulate and animate prototypes, and to collaborate on problems. This is informal learning, for learners will invest the amount of time appropriate to what's to be learned; engaging conversation personalizes learning, and often a brief chat is all it takes to promote an opportunity or idea. The bonus comes when VRWs support learning in ways that current methods cannot (3D to 3D learning is natural) leading to a higher level of consciousness and knowledge retention. At the end of the day, VRWs will afford more freedom as we think about how to apply them to make learning more engaging and memorable. Much more than training, VRWs enable self learning. They are learning/working ecosystems that by their very nature embrace:

* Flow, balancing inactivity and challenge in just the right proportions to keep people moving through the experience;

* Repetition, which allows learners to try-and-try again as many times as they choose;

* Experimentation, encouraging learners to try new things and learn in the process;

* Experience that is much more engaging in many ways than other digitally mediated technologies;

* Doing, because practice makes perfect and VRWs are the big practice fields;

* Observing, because if you're not ready to act now, you have plenty of opportunities to observe others and learn from them;

* Motivation, because all of these factors culminate in an environment that cultivates teachable moments at every turn. Motivation is built into the context as people want to learn within it.

Where are we headed?

Humans evolved to pick nuts and berries and hunt (hunter gatherers), not to strain reality through text, words, concepts, and computers. In many ways, knowledge workers already live in a fantasy world. VRWs herald a more intuitive metaphor for communication and interpretation of our real world.

The industrial-revolution approach to learning put a wall around schools and training departments (remember another brick in the wall). This "protected" the learners from outside interference and distraction. Children were kept at school rather than sent out into the community to communicate and discover 'why' thing are as they are. Workers left work for training and instilled with a strict work ethic to enhance productivity. Talk about artificial life! It's so much more effective to learn from the real thing (3D), and VRWs are the closest we have got for practicing without any customer consequences.

VRWs have evolved into a common ground for bringing everyone in an organization together on the same field and level. Person-to-person interaction can replace the rigid organisational policies. The wonders of interoperability and internet services will pull real-world data into virtual real worlds seamlessly.

Virtual real worlds provide a clean slate for organisational renewal, or work ethic, a transition from the rigid structures and boundaries of the industrial (physical) world to the flexibility and innovation of the knowledge (intangible) world. VRWs will enable social interaction on many issues to ask the question 'why' and foster a more understanding and encourage a higher truth levels of consciousness.

Next step.

If your organisation is a true early adopter, it is time to invest heavily in the capabilities and resources afforded in VRWs. It's neither expensive nor difficult, and it will give you an appreciation for the fresh viewpoints and concepts that are emanating out of VRW innovations. It will change your perspective on what is possible today in informal and generative learning. By using a pre-programmed data base of 3D objects or artefacts and textures we can greatly reduce costs and project time-scales by reusing items once created.

Imagination and novelty will be at a premium when creating these VRWs. The new teachers will be able to manipulate VRWs into icons of learning using the 3D to 3D paradigm.

See http://mellanium.com for detailed information and supporting articles for additional anecdotes. Skype id joe133952 for live demonstration.

Copyright © Ken Rigby for Tele3DWorld and MellaniuM Design.

All Rights Reserved. 2007

Epilogue:

Remove the walls around the schools and universities; allow people to think beyond the blinkered curriculum's created by power hungry thought control freaks. Say NO! to the dark sarcasm's in the classroom; enable an environment of asking 'WHY' to re-emerge and release the creative powers of the human mind (everything has not been thought of no matter what they say). We don't need no thought control.

"Hey! Teacher leave them kids alone".

The Blue Meanies just got bluer and meaner! (Yellow Submarine)

[AC]

It may be better to add this to the site forum as a new topic. The forum is more visible than blog posts and supports threaded discussions.