904 Best Practices for Developing, Implementing, and Supporting Serious Games
8:30 AM - 9:30 AM Thursday, March 28
Games and Gamification
Salon 4
Many people in the eLearning field are trying to use gamification and serious games to spark employee engagement and drive learning retention. Everyone is working to make the best serious game that will enhance the learning objectives and retain learning. The biggest setbacks for some of these serious games and gamified learning experiences have been little to no planning, tough-to-pinpoint metrics, little to no implementation strategy, and insufficient or nonexistent post-deployment support.
There are many serious games that are built for companies and for internal use within the eLearning industry. This session will discuss what makes a serious game a success or a failure. You’ll hear about planning, developing, implementing, and supporting serious games for companies that have never gone down the route of serious games and gamified learning experiences. You’ll also learn the proper steps to take throughout each phase of the project to ensure success, including best practices and pain points you may have to deal with when going down the route of gamification and serious games.
In this session, you will learn:
- Best practices to ensure a successful serious game implementation
- How these serious games are living, breathing things
- Best practices taken by other organizations in regard to phases of the effort
- A framework for how to start thinking about game design as an educator
Audience:
Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.)

Andrew Hughes
President
Designing Digitally, Inc.
Andrew Hughes is the president of Designing Digitally, Inc. and has over a decade in the strategical planning and development of enterprise custom gamified learning solutions for government and Fortune 500 clients. Andrew is also a professor at the University of Cincinnati and prior to this was a contractor for the US Department of Education, Ohio Board of Regents, and General Electric. Andrew oversees a team of 30 employees and is focused on ensuring the clients’ challenges are met with engaging, educational, and entertaining learning experiences.