corporate strategy
course it is home to Unicorn and Amuzo… ‘Gamification’ and ‘serious games’ continue to be hot topics in the world of
Game on A
e-learning. Applying gaming principles to revolutionise engagement and learning effectiveness has huge potential. However, the understanding of these terms still seems to be commonly confused. So let’s differentiate ‘gamification’ and ‘serious games’. The former is often used as a catch-all term, but they are different. In an e-learning context, gamification is primarily platform functionality – data collection and presentation as leaderboards, badges, achievements, ratings, recommendations. Many learning management systems (LMS) use a number of these methods and some, like Growth Engineering, do it particularly well. Serious games, on the other hand, are first and foremost games. Although there are predetermined learning objectives going into the development process, the gameplay element comes first to turn the learning experience into an enjoyable one. This is where Amuzo has most to offer. Instead of ‘serious’, we prefer the more appropriate term of ‘Learning Games’, because surely the point of games is that they are not serious. They are engaging because they are fun. ‘Serious games’ is an oxymoron that ranks with ‘original copy’, ‘friendly fire’, ‘elementary calculus’ or some might say ‘Premier League Bournemouth’!
Putting Gaming Principles Into Practice Although there is a growing consensus around the power of game principles to invigorate the learning experience, there is far less agreement about how best to put those principles into practice.
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Earlier this year Unicorn took a strategic stake in award-winning games studio, Amuzo. But what’s behind this partnership and what can we expect from a games developer and established e-learning company collaboration? Unicorn CEO Peter Phillips explains the strategy.
s recently reported in the Observer, Bournemouth has been crowned the UK’s fastest growing digital economy, even above London: it’s not only home to a new Premier League football club but also a University famed for its digital media graduates. And of
The skill set required to create games for digital devices is very different from
that of traditional e-learning, and so often is the cost. Unicorn’s investment in Amuzo is intended to bridge that gap. So, how does Amuzo fit with Unicorn, and what are the benefits of the
association so far? To get a better sense of the apps they create, you could download a couple of the free LEGO games developed by Amuzo from the App Store or Google Play. Your kids might even be playing them already. To state the blindingly obvious, they do not look much like corporate e-learning. Amuzo’s COO, Adrian Smith, has a remarkable backstory in video games. He and his brother set up a small video games studio in Derby called Core Design. In 1993 they came up with the idea for the first video game action heroine. You may have heard of her – Lara Croft. You know the rest. While I don’t anticipate Lara leaping into any Unicorn courses any time soon – or being invited to join Angelina Jolie on set – having access to that industry experience is invaluable. The Amuzo mantra is “fun first”, a philosophy which mirrors that of the revered Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, who sadly died recently. Nintendo may have been going through a dip of late, but the obituaries remind us of his company’s extraordinary impact in taking gaming to non-gamers. It is largely Iwata’s vision that got Granny playing tenpin bowling on the Wii. Corporate learning is not primarily about entertainment, so how do we introduce that spirit of fun into e-learning without it becoming a distraction rather than an asset? Learners, particularly if they are obliged to complete mandatory compliance training, do not have the same mind set as they do when settling down to an evening of Call of Duty or Minecraft. While it is early days, we are already finding the creative tension between our different ways of thinking about the world is generating better ideas. As e-learning designers we naturally start our design process with learning outcomes. Adding fun
e.learning age september 2015
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