713 Creating Casual Games for Online Communities Chris Franz & Raza Syed, Microsoft
Chris Franz Raza Syed elearning in market for over 5 years Reaches broad set of customers Over a million unique users come to the Learning site per month Over 500K courses are activated and taken every year Over 2000 hours of online training available Content is globally available in multiple languages Drives high customer satisfaction elearning customer satisfaction among the highest in various Microsoft online properties (Typically 5+ points higher than most properties) elearning drives significant improvement in satisfaction with MS products Industry leading seat times and completion rates Over 60 minutes per session for IT professionals Over 40 minutes per session for information workers Every month, an estimated 200 million consumers play casual games online, many of whom do not normally regard themselves as gamers, or fans of video games. Learning Effectiveness How effective are games in technical training? Cost, Time to market & Scale Can we create low cost games? Can we create them in cycle times less than 12 weeks? How many games can we create in an year without changing our resources? msn Stand-Alone Lesson Prototype MSN s request 4500 help desk personnel in 24 locations 15 minutes of daily training Authentication Error #691 (27% success) Goals for the pilot Create a 15 minute standalone lesson consisting of 3 games to train the CSR to resolve Error #691 Measure learning effectiveness (reactions, learning, transfer, results) 6 Page 1
msn Stand-Alone Lesson Prototype 80% 70% Agent Performance (% solved on first call) 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 7 38% 40% 20% Nanaimo Quezon San Salvador Before 67% 71% 58% Nanaimo Quezon San Salvador After The Team The Game team is similar to any software development team. Developers Develop in Flash, Silverlight, XNA, Java, C# Instructional Designers Writer/Editor Subject Matter Expert Product Design Project Management Testing Casual Game Costs Budgets typically range from 100,000-500,000 USD. Development Time is 8 to 12 months Updating for: Xbox Live Arcade versions cost 230,000 USD ipod, mobile & PDA versions cost 20,000 USD Hotel room versions cost 10,000 USD Handheld devices cost300,000 USD Allow SMEs to create games Simplicity Cost reduction Anyone can author Ease of Authoring (Quantity) elearning Game Built-in instructional design model Template-based Vendors Partners Microsoft Learning Community Anyone 9 Level of Interactivity (Quality) Vendors will become more efficient Microsoft learning community Partners dev elop w hich creates training for their own content Microsoft products & technologies Learning Game Authoring Evolution Any Expert can create training 10 12 Free tool enabling the MS Learning community. Generates interactive content including, assessments, quizzes, games, animations, demos, and other. Supports Silverlight and Sharepoint Learning Kit! Over 22,000 visits to the web site since April 08 and 10390+ downloads to-date Available at http://microsoft.com/learning/tools Page 2
Microsoft Learning Community Learning Coming in June 2009 Create and share e-learning games on Microsoft products and technologies Use Microsoft Learning tools to easily create e-learning games Built on SharePoint and Silverlight Quick and Easy 1. Download the LCDS 2. Add instructional content, games, activities. 3. Upload to the Microsoft Learning Community Learning site. Trivia Games Points High score Streaks Mini-games https://www.microsoft.com/click/areyoucertifiable/default.aspx Mini Games Top Scores Time Variety Surprise Role Playing and Adventure Games Tasks to complete (quests) Learner directed Include mini games Rich interactive scenario-based games will be ubiquitous in Microsoft training content MSL Games will be created by everybody, reviewed by the community and will address serious learning needs Page 3
Practice and feedback Trial and error Learning by doing Goal-oriented learning Discovery and guided discovery Task-based learning Question-led learning Decision making Role-playing Coaching Constructivist Learning Multi-sense learning 1. Determine objectives 2. Get the gameplay down 3. Weave in the instructional design Game Development Process Start Easy and templatize for broad use Content in XML files to make updates and loc easy Fill out a form Quickly create a simple casual game Most casual games have similar basic features: Extremely simple game play Easy to learn Allowing game play in short bursts Ability to quickly reach a final stage, or continuous play with no need to save the game 2D, abstract graphics Player can get into game play almost immediately Page 4
Casual Games Association http://www.casualgamesassociation.org/research_news.php XNA Community Site: http://creators.xna.com/en-us/ Microsoft e-learning http://www.microsoft.com/learning/elearning.mspx Learning Content Development System (LCDS) http://microsoft.com/learning/tools Digital Game-Based Learning by Marc Prensky and Sivasailam Thiagarajan Contact Information Rsyed@Microsoft.com Cfranz@Microsoft.com Page 5