James Carse talks about this in his book: Finite and Infinite Games. He says: Finite games usually end with a victory or loss. While infinite games don’t end. They are focused on progress and continuation of play. So how do you go about designing game ecosystems in which winning isn’t the goal? When the goal is learning or just simply continuation of play.

Finite and Infinite Games is available on Amazon 

I build games for learning in which learning must happen irrespective of a win/lose state for players. There are a few things I’ve learnt over the years which have helped me to focus on the learning outcomes as opposed to winning and losing in a game ecosystem. Here are some of them.

Reorient the player learning narrative

Most players enter a game ecosystem for the following reasons:

• To have fun
• To learn
• To get better
• To win
• To take down the bad guy
• To conquer an epic quest
• To pass time

And on and on…

As you can see, for a player, winning isn’t the only objective (while it may be important) it isn’t the only one. So when I design game ecosystems in which winning isn’t the goal, I dispel the idea that we’re here to win. Instead, I make it abundantly clear from the very beginning that we’re here to learn, to play, to revisit something we knew but weren’t sure about or to discover something entirely new. Doing this changes the narrative of the player and makes them think about why they’re here. It reorients them to start to see things from another perspective.

Design for reflection

When you bake into your design the opportunity to reflect from the learning, the learners are less likely to focus on absolute outcomes like win/lose. This requires you to start by reorienting the players’ narrative and then identifying the important reflection areas to direct the players’ attention to after the game-play.

Focus on progress and activity instead of “Victory”

While I can’t imagine a finite game that does not have an end goal, one of the things I’ve been able to do is make the end goal less obvious by increasing focus on real-time activities that the player must do to eventually get to the end goal. If done right, the activities themselves are so engaging that most players will feel busy and content with staying there. I’ll encourage you to read about core and dual loops to learn more about that. When players focus on the activities at hand and gain progress (and have fun) through that, they are likely to care less about the end outcome. Needless to say, this isn’t a blanket statement as we know there are all kinds of players out there. Ones who play to play and ones who play to win.

Why dampen the effects of win/lose states in learning games

In most games, this shouldn’t matter as much. But in games that are designed for learning, this element plays a significant role. Think about how you feel when you win a game. Now about how you feel when you lose. A stark difference right? No matter how balanced and zen-like you are, you feel a sense of elation when you win and little pinch when you don’t.

As I designed and ran learning games for various corporate teams across the world, I began to realize that when teams won the game, they would bask in their glory of how incredible they were. While when they lost, they would often sulk so much that they didn’t want to have anything to do with the game. Some went as far as blaming my games to be “rigged”.

Over time I realized as I shifted the focus from winning or losing to playing and learning, I was able to keep the players balanced through the game. If they won, there was something to learn from the experience just as much as if they lost. Through the years as I ran tests with the three parameters, I learned that the cases in which the learners did not focus on winning/losing were the cases in which players took away the most learning from the game irrespective of whether they won or lost in the game.

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In today’s fast-paced environment, learning is the need of the hour. Yes, you may get hired because you’re a talented individual with a great track record and have experience with Fortune 500 companies but the reason you’ll stay on top of a company’s “watch-list” is if you keep learning and growing.

We need to learn to learn quickly and efficiently: what you knew five years ago will most likely not work today. Marshall Goldsmith talks about this in his book: ‘What Got You Here Won’t Get You There’. So in search of a powerful learning tool that meets today’s demands of growth, I have discovered Game-Based Learning (GBL) and here’s why I believe GBL will change corporate learning for years to come.

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There is available on Amazon

1. PROXIMITY TO REALITY for authentic behaviors

Game-based Learning has the ability to build a strong association with reality. What happens in a game-based learning environment has a direct correlation with how you might deal with a similar situation in real life. 94% of participants who have played our game-based learning games say that their behaviors in the game are indicative of how they actually respond. Knowing these responses in a closed-circuit environment are far safer than dealing with their consequences in real-life. For instance: counter-productive behaviors, ineffective decision making skills

2. ACCELERATED GROWTH through real experiences

Real growth happens though experience. And we know that the more experience one gathers, the more wisdom they have because the learning associated with an intense experience gets lodged into one’s cerebral cortex. Game-based learning is about taking months, if not years of experience and condensing it into one or two days. An effectively designed game-based learning experience can also create a similar impact because authentic emotions are triggered due to the experience’s closeness to reality.

3. BRIDGE THE KNOWING-DOING GAP

When people fail to apply what they’ve learned it is not because they don’t want to. In a study conducted by Stanford University, it is found that people don’t apply their learning because they aren’t confident enough in their ability to apply the learned skill/behavior. Game-based learning bridges that gap by giving participants the opportunity to apply their learning in real-time. Participants see the impact of their actions right away and are more confident to apply in other parts of their lives as well.

4. MULTI-FUNCTIONED USAGE for Organisational Development (OD) interventions

Imagine a training program that can be used to achieve not one but multiple objectives; learning, behavioral analysis, skill development, succession planning. Because an immersive learning environment is designed to replicate life — it has several simultaneous use cases. Life doesn’t play out in a linear fashion, many things are happening simultaneously. Job, family, health and wellness and every decision you make has not one but many implications. Likewise, game-based learning allows multi-functioned usability through its implementation.

These four elements stand out strongly from a typical experiential learning or classroom training environment. They also have the potential to change the way corporate training happens because of their multifold impact on everything business: ROI, top-line and critical lead measures that can’t be leveraged without effective learning interventions.

This article was originally published in the Gamitar Blog.

The post Four Reasons Game-Based Learning Makes Corporate Training Better first appeared on Ludogogy.

• How the facilitator needs to interact with the system
• How the participants interact with the system
• The shortcomings of the technology
• The tech specs of the facilitator’s and participants’ devices
• And the most important: facilitating the game itself

While the intent is to teach how to facilitate a fun learning game, some of the sections are daunting and downright tedious! I also wasn’t getting the results I was hoping for with the certification program i.e. of the first 50 people that signed up, only 3 completed the certification program while most were unresponsive. That’s some scary data!
When I went back to the drawing board, I highlighted a few things that I wanted in the program (in order of priority):

1. Improved completion rate
2. Self-paced
3. Participants to support each other in their cohorts
4. Participants to feel engaged in the program

The more I thought about my priorities, the clearer it became that engagement was the most important element in the eco-system. It wasn’t that people were not completing the program because they didn’t want to or because going through the content was a drag, it was mostly because they were busy. They didn’t always have the time to go through the material and in other cases they would just forget. One might argue: why not use simple notifications to remind people to get back on the program. Really? I think platforms like Coursera set the benchmark of running online courses. How many incomplete courses do you have in your arsenal despite their timely and well researched reminders? Certainly more than we care to admit.

So what then? Maybe a game? Perhaps, one that would require players to interact with each other. Where the currency to progress is linked to the completion of the certification program. And most importantly: the reminders don’t come from the organizers but from other participants. Fortunately for me, my team and I had built such a game a few years ago so I thought of trying it out. I uploaded all my certification content on the game and ran a few test runs.

After working through the initial teething issues through the first several batches, I was ready to launch the competitive mode which really brings the game to life. I set up three teams who would compete against each other for first place.

The pick-up was a little slow as usual. But as members began attending the program, they got more and more involved. They asked other, less active, members to join in and play because everyone was required to increase the team score. As each person played the game they were completing their certification program.

It was absolutely fascinating to see how members of teams that don’t even know each other were playing and competing with one another. The scores were off the charts and I was blown away by the results! By the time we reached the third week of the certification program with the three teams I was able to see that of the 24 participants enrolled, 22 of them are active and progressing in their certification program on a daily basis – a ratio I had never seen before.

So what’s my point? Games can be a powerful tool to enable engagement and interaction when used purposefully. I think one of the reasons I was able to achieve the little success I had was because I spent time in contemplation and research to figure out why my participants weren’t progressing. There’s no doubt that with different data I might’ve chosen another route – perhaps not a game. When we spend time in analysing the root cause and the single most important element that could cause the domino effect of positive behavior which would ultimately achieve your objective, you’re well on your way to designing a game or an approach that is sure to hit the nail on the head!

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