507 Developer Secrets: Avoiding Common Mistakes in Creating Serious Games
1:15 PM - 2:15 PM Thursday, October 25
Games and Gamification
Antigua B
Organizations are increasingly using serious games in their learning, development, and assessment activities. But designing and developing custom serious games requires a different set of skills than traditional eLearning creation. What skills do you and your team need to create successful serious games, and what people will you need to partner with in order to have a smooth development process?
Drawing upon experience making serious games for learning, development, and assessment, this session will cover common mistakes organizations have made (or allowed their developers to make) in the procurement, design, development, and employment of serious games. You’ll then discuss the strategies for overcoming these issues so you can lead successful serious game initiatives.
In this session, you will learn:
- Effective strategies for selecting a serious game design and development partner
- About mistakes commonly made by organizations in scoping their serious game efforts
- About the typical cycle of iteration of a serious game design
- About the stakeholders within and external to the organization that should be consulted in a serious game employment plan
Audience:
Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).
Technology discussed in this session:
Diverse examples of serious game design.
Jennifer McNamara
VP Serious Games
BreakAway Games
Jennifer McNamara is a vice president of serious games at BreakAway Games. She has spoken at Serious Play; the Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology; the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation, and Education Conference (I/ITSEC); Game Developers’ Conference; Games for Change Festival; ATD TechKnowledge; and ATP Innovations in Testing. Jenn directs the nonprofit Serious Games Showcase and Challenge. She received the Audience Choice and Game Changer awards in the Association of Test Publishers’ Innovation Lab (2017) and awards for the most innovative new product demonstrations (2016 and 2017). Jenn holds an MEd from Penn State and a BS from Drexel.