how to design games that make sense to schools

How to design games (products) that make

sense to schools?

Santeri Koivisto

ceo, co-founder @ TeacherGaming LLC

TG history in a nutshell

TG in numbers- 10 employees (recruitment run happening for two

more)

- 5 co-founders

- 3 teachers

- 1 coder

- 1 lawyer

- 3500 schools, libraries, museums etc as customers

- 330 more joined last month

- $150k monthly licensing revenue from MinecraftEdu

and KerbalEdu

- no debts or VC money

- 2% revenue from de minimis -grants

- annual growth 100%<

‘Don’t make them.’

Rule 1 - “Game has to be a great and fun game before

it can be a good game for education.”

Rule 2 - ‘There’s no revolution.’

Rule 3 - ‘Reconsider the model: proto - money -> univ. pilot -

Rule 2 - ‘Know how you are dealing with!’

10%

1%

29%

1%

58%

1%Business!

Ethos

Make it spread, but how?

Here’s the change we are driving: Democracy.(amongst other things)

And this is how we deliver it.

Community

- Public channel

- in-house teachers

- Google group

- map library + scenario editor

- wiki

- Live

- #tgtour2014

- local events

- TG conference 2015??

Rule 3 - ‘Ctrl - Alt - Del doesn’t make any sense’

(remove noise)

Our design challenges:

- context / situation

- sandbox

- purpose

Rule 4 - ‘Know what you are up against. Do better.’

Insufficiency.

Rule 5 - ‘Think outside the box: are schools really

the target customer?’

Rule 6 - ‘Have different revenue streams.’

Rule 7 - ‘Know your *ucking field.’

Example: ‘How TG products work.’

‘Don’t make games for schools. Make games

for fun and use schools as a potential

marketing channel, but only if that really makes

sense.’

@Aalvisto

@Aalvisto

santeri@teachergaming.com