Lessons from the virtual playing field

BEN BETTSCEO @ HT2Research Engineer @ University of Warwick, UK

BEN BETTS

Lessons from the Virtual Playing Field

Here’s a major issue that we all face:

There is a gap between what employment needs and what education provides.

This session is all about how we might narrow that gap.

BEN BETTS

Lessons from the Virtual Playing Field

First a quick exercise:Put these nine statements in order:

Most important – least important

in terms of skills, attitudes and behaviours your organisation demands of young workers.

BEN BETTS

Lessons from the Virtual Playing Field

“Serious games could offer providers a way to scale up the tough-to-provide, down-to-earth training that students want.”

McKinsey, From Education to Employment

http://mckinseyonsociety.com/education-to-employment/report/

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BEN BETTS

Let me take you back to 1999… Delta Force 2

14 years ago, online gaming was already a reality on a global, massive scale.

For my 16th birthday, my parents got me a phone line…

Lessons from the Virtual Playing Field

BEN BETTS

By 2004, it had got a bit more serious…

Practices, tournaments, websites, sponsors…

We were even getting pretty good.

Lessons from the Virtual Playing Field

BEN BETTS

Gamers don’t play serious games.

They play games seriously.

Lessons from the Virtual Playing Field

BEN BETTS

Lessons from the Virtual Playing Field

Challenge:

Can we map our needs to some well-known game characteristics?

BEN BETTS

Lessons from the Virtual Playing Field

Real-time Interaction

If interaction is seen as valuable, then we should be doing as much as possible to maximise the interactivity. For me, this only really comes when people communicate with other people.

Teamspeak – a real-time voice chat program for gamers

BEN BETTS

Lessons from the Virtual Playing Field

Cross-functional teams

Many games bring avatars with different skillsets. Here it becomes really important that a team functions as a unit to achieve a goal. Without each other, the goal couldn’t be achieved.

Recruiting via Teamfind.com

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Systems thinking

Multiplayer games encourage people to think about relationships, not just isolated events. Actions impact other people and users have to deal with the fallout that creates.

CS:CZ – know the system, not just your role within it.

BEN BETTS

Lessons from the Virtual Playing Field

Co-Production

Gee called this production, I’d call it creation or construction.

The ability to build a world, a building or a character in-conjunction with, or in-competition with, others.

SimCity – too much rubbish? Sell it to your neighbours

BEN BETTS

Lessons from the Virtual Playing Field

Affinity Spaces

Games grow communities which exist outside the bounds of the game world. Think websites, competitions and communities.

Wowpedia has over 115,000 pages of user generated content.

BEN BETTS

Lessons from the Virtual Playing Field

Risk Taking

In the real-world mistakes can be costly, especially when starting out. Games encourage safe-failure and give a ‘reset’ ability to undo mistakes. In games, as in life, failure is a powerful tool of learning. It’s just that in games, we can reset.

Kerbal Space Program – taking risks and mostly failing…

BEN BETTS

Lessons from the Virtual Playing Field

Identity

Participants in learning need to commit to the process. Games encouraged users to create new identities or take the role of a pre-conceived identity that they can commit to in the long term.

WoW – players get a little… protective of their characters.

Real-time Interaction

Cross-functional teams

Systems thinking

Co-Production

Affinity Spaces

Risk Taking

Identity

BEN BETTS

Lessons from the Virtual Playing Field

Oral Communication

Team work

Leadership

Creativity

Written Communication

Problem Solving

Work Ethic

First play games seriously.

If you are thinking about putting serious games to work…

BEN BETTS

Lessons from the Virtual Playing Field

BEN BETTS

Lessons from the Virtual Playing Field

Ben Betts – ben@ht2.co.uk | @bbettswww.ht2.co.uk