Metafocus: Making an Educational Game That Lasts 40 Years

In the book PerennialSeller, author Ryan Holiday describes the difference between perennialsellers—books that steadily sell hundreds or even thousands of copies, weekafter week after week, for decades—and blockbuster hits—books that may makebest-seller lists in the short term but are quickly forgotten. Many writersdream of writing best-sellers, but what few authors realize is that 90 percentof the industry revenues come from publishers’ backlists. That is, perennialsellers far, far outsell the hits. This is true for music, movies, and videogames as well. This column is a brief primer on why and how to create perennial-sellereducational video games instead of big hits.

Perennial seller vs. blockbuster hit

The Oregon Trail, launched in 1971,is arguably the best educational video game of all time, having sold 65 millioncopies over 10 iterations and 40 years. Admittedly, the game didn’t have a lotof competition in the 1970s or ’80s. However, despite the simplicity of thegraphics and slowness of the game play, I still enjoy playing The Oregon Trail. It helped me, and over100 million other young students, learn about and better understand the livesof Old West pioneer families.

The game was a resounding success by nearly every standardimaginable except one: best-seller lists. TheOregon Trail didn’t sell any copies for the first couple of years. Thedeveloper was a teacher who played it only in his own classroom, and it tookthree years for the game to be redesigned and finally reach a small butrespectable national audience. The game’s popularity grew slowly but steadily fromthere. Best-seller lists, in contrast to the Oregon Trail model, strongly favor games, books, movies, and othermedia with the highest sales in any given week. This means a game (book, movie,etc.) may reach best-seller status in the initial weeks after release, sometimeseven just for a single week, before sales quickly drop as the newest newreleases bump it off the list.

The new VR game ArkPark, set to launch on August 29, stands in stark contrast to The Oregon Trail. It was originallyplanned as an educational VR experience that would give players “the opportunity to truly appreciate and understand dinosaurs in their natural habitat.” However, the game has evolved considerably since its original promotions.The most recent teaser trailer demonstrates how laughably noteducational the game has become.

Originally, the game was planned as a VR dinosaur pettingzoo of sorts, “like Jurassic Park before things went wrong.” However, Ark Park game play now consists of shooting and killingfire-breathing T. Rexes, giant scorpions, and, inexplicably, King Kong withturret guns and lasers. The new version of the game may still be educational ina sense, just as watching any violence-packed action movie is educational toimpressionable young minds, but I’m guessing the original educationalobjectives no longer apply. I’ll bet you a nickel that Ark Park won’t be assigned by any schoolteachers in 40 years.

Now, I don’t want to come down too hard on Ark Park here. In a way, I can’t blamethem. This is a big-ish-budget video game. The developers have to make theirmoney back. I can’t see millions of kids wanting to pay money for a game thatallows them to gently pet giant beavers and feed fish to brontosauruses. Butsneaking through the jungle and blasting away at wild packs of hungryvelociraptors in a VR first-person shooter experience, what kid wouldn’t want to try that?

Snail Games, the game development company that created Ark Park, simply pivoted to a betterbusiness model, or perhaps this was part of an ingenious marketing strategyfrom the outset. Either way, more power to them. I hope they sell millions ofcopies and make a fortune. I only mention ArkPark and The Oregon Trail to clearlydemonstrate the difference between a perennial seller and a (potential) blockbusterhit.

For the purposes of this article, I’ll assume that you, asan instructional designer, teacher, or other educational professional, wouldrather build the next Oregon Trailinstead of the next Ark Park. I’llassume you already have an idea for a new game that will teach studentsvaluable knowledge. You want the lessons to really stick with the students,perhaps even improving students’ lives over the long term. You want iterationsof your game to be played in classrooms and online for years or even decades tocome. Great! That’s a fantastic place to start. So … how do you do it?

What not to do

First, let’s start with what not to do. What pitfalls should you avoid on your path to making aperennial seller? DO NOT:

1. Entirely disregard your educational objectives
2. Pander to the lowest common denominator togenerate lots of sales quickly
3. Rely primarily on violence to keep playersengaged
4. Spend a fortune creating snazzy visuals andbuying IP from established brands (e.g., Harry Potter, Star Wars, Disney,Marvel, etc.), forcing you to do 1, 2, and 3 above to recoup your investmentquickly

How to make a perennial seller

OK, what not to do sounds simple enough. But what should youdo instead?

Ryan Holiday describes the seven strategies to create aperennial seller book. Again, these strategies apply to any kind of media,content, or artistic work, not just books. Holiday explores each of thesestrategies in his book, as well as in the following article published onGrowthLab: “Forget going viral. Here’s how to create work that lasts forever.” Rather thantrying to summarize each strategy here, I’ll link directly to the relevantsections in Holiday’s article, as he explains them far better than I could.

• Strategy 1: Create timeless work
• Strategy 2: Launches matter, but keep going past them
• Strategy 3: Get (the right) press
• Strategy 4: Find your champions
• Strategy 5: Use discounting to build your audience
• Strategy 6: Keep making stuff
• Strategy 7: Keep your platform in mind

How to make a timeless educational game

Those seven strategies are all very useful, but strategies 2­­­– 7 are all about marketing and creating new work. Arguably the biggest andmost difficult task is to execute strategy 1 well. It’s also the first task anycreator must complete. Specifically, how do you create a timeless educationalvideo game in the first place?

You and/or your team must of course learn the technicalaspects of creating a game using a game engine such as Unity or Unreal Engine,as described in detail in this article. Besides the technical ability, you also need to plan your gamewell by following these eight steps.

1. Defineyour educational objectives.
   This includes defining your audience and their needs. Once you define youreducational objectives, make sure these are known by everyone on the team andincorporated into every aspect of the game, from start to finish.
2. Brainstormideas for what the game could be.
   This includes setting, levels, characters, lessons, techniques, narratives,etc. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box, especially if you’re creating aVR game, because educational VR games are still new for everyone.
3. Read books on game design.
   This will help you design better games, inspire you with new ideas, and helpyou avoid common mistakes of game design.
4. Play adozen (or 50) different educational games.
   Write down what you liked and didn’t like about each so you can incorporate thatdesign knowledge into your own game.
5. Storyboardyour game idea from start to finish.
   Until you clearly draw and describe each scene, lesson, room, character,chapter, etc., you don’t truly understand your game, and neither will anyoneelse.
6. Solicit explicitfeedback.
   Make sure to get feedback from people with different perspectives, including multiplestudents, teachers, and other content experts, instructional designers, gamedevelopers, game theorists, and game designers.
7. Incorporatefeedback into your game design.
   While you don’t want to completely change your premise based on every singleoffhand comment you receive, you also shouldn’t assume you know best. Be opento criticism. Improving your game based on honest feedback will help it evolvefrom mediocre to great.
8. Build yourgame.
   Make sure content experts and game developers are both involved at every step.Game developers will make a great game, but don’t understand or care aboutcontent. Content experts know what needs to be taught and how, but not how toturn it into a game. Both sides need each other.

Summary

While the above advice may sound as daunting as “climb MountEverest before lunch,” it’s not as hard as it seems. Take as much time as youneed on each step in both Holiday’s list and mine, and you’ll be well on yourway to launching the next Oregon Trailthat students will play and love for the next 40 years.

Let us know in the comments which step of creating aperennial seller is the most difficult and why.