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Serious Games bringing transformational learning to business

Via: Enspire Learning - Fluent in Finance™: Live Edition

Enspire Learning announced the release of a new learning experience: Fluent in Finance™: Live Edition, which aims to provide a better way for non-financial managers to learn finance.

Learn to Speak the Language of Business

Enspire's Fluent in Finance is an online and blended curriculum designed to teach finance concepts to managers in a meaningful and memorable way. Combining a mixture of interactive case studies, rich media tutorials, and practice exercises, Fluent in Finance is a curriculum that allows learners to understand financial concepts and provide the skills needed to apply them.

Fluent in Finance Live Edition

In addition to the online curriculum, the Fluent in Finance Live Edition brings the benefits of classroom learning to the web through instructor-led discussions and coaching sessions. While playing Finance Challenge, a multiplayer simulation, learners apply their financial knowledge in realistic settings and also receive individualized feedback on their performance from skilled instructors.

Live Edition is designed for non-financial managers, small business owners, and dynamic professionals who can commit to a six-week program with regular web-based meetings. Managers, entrepreneurs, and professionals with tight scheduling constraints should consider the Basic Edition.

You can access part of Chapter 2 here, to play through a portion of the Fluent in Finance curriculum.

About Enspire

Enspire Learning was founded in 2001 with the mission to create effective online learning. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, the company provides innovative e-learning development services to corporate, academic, and government training departments.

A Case Study

Sun New Hires: Serious Games As Part Of The Onboarding Process

In 2007, Sun Microsystems commissioned Enspire Learning to create an onboarding game. Sun wanted to appeal to a younger demographic of potential employees, to teach them about the company, and to generate enthusiasm about joining the company. However, they also wanted to appeal to current employees (mean age 42), many of whom work remotely and rarely see the office; the company wanted them to feel integrated into it.

After testing several iterations, Enspire created two games for Sun. One, Rise of the Shadow Specters, was a puzzle-based action game in which learners dodged lasers, jumped from platform to platform, and evaded the villainous shadow specters. The other, Dawn of the Shadow Specters, was a “choose-your-own-adventure” game that appealed to employees who did not like video games. The project was a success, but only because of careful attention to detail.

The Sun project shows that some serious business needs, like increasing enthusiasm for the company, can be achieved using a fun game. Not all serious games will be as fantasy- oriented and action-packed as Rise of the Shadow Specters, but this game is an example of the diverse needs that serious games can meet for a company.

Enhancing large-scale, real-world games

With games like Sharkrunners that cross media and create an artful mix of real and virtual worlds, area/code delights in challenging gamers' expectations

Via: area/code

Source: Future-Making Serious Games - Serious Games Become Tangible Using Mobile Technology
Source: Business Week - Game Maker Profile: area/code

area/code Makes Big Games

Big Games are large-scale, real-world games. A Big Game might involve transforming an entire city into the world's largest board game, or hundreds of players scouring the streets looking for invisible treasure, or a TV show reaching out to interact with real-time audiences nationwide.

Focused for so long on features—technical specs, rendering speeds, and sophisticated, polygonal graphics—gaming has suddenly become about socializing, real-world interaction, and, well, fun for everybody. This seismic shift is a source of delight for Frank Lantz and Kevin Slavin, co-founders of New York gaming and marketing company area/code.

area/code was founded in early 2005 by Frank Lantz (bio) and Kevin Slavin (bio) and it has a HQ in Manhattan. With backgrounds in game design (Lantz) and digital marketing (Slavin), the pair initially started their company to produce "big games": large-scale, multiplayer efforts that take place in the real world. Since then, they've pulled off some impressive feats of organization and synchronicity.

The pair's first collaboration was a big game promoting Qwest Wireless' mobile-phone offerings.

That was just the beginning: Increasingly sophisticated—and ubiquitous—technology is allowing area/code to bring its life-size experiments to a global audience.

Crossroads is a GPS game developed for Boost Mobile handsets. In this 2-player game, players capture Manhattan intersections by moving through them. But they must beware the Baron Samedi, an invisible spirit who is in the grid with them. The combination of real and imaginary opponents creates an uncanny experience, and a new type of play.

Plundr is the world's first location-based PC game. Using state-of-the-art Wi-Fi Positioning System technologies (WPS), the game locates the user's computer in physical space and uses their location as part of the game.

The game itself is a pirate adventure, in which players move from island to island to buy, sell and fight for goods. Depending on where you are in the physical world, you'll find different islands, different market prices and different ships to fight,

Together Everywhere is designed for fans of the European 2008 Football Championship who want to celebrate together, wherever they may be. Developed for Puma, Together Everywhere uses mobile phones to connect fans both in the real world and beyond. Fans download their favorite team's song or chant as a ring tone that is associated with a specific number. Every time their team scores a goal, Puma calls them to trigger that cheer.

The Sopranos A&E Connection game was designed for the premiere of the Sopranos on A&E TV. Using cell phones to collect pieces, players composed a online gameboard to anticipate what might happen that night on the Sopranos, much like Fantasy Football works with sports.