作者：Sande Chen

10年前，我和David Michael写了一本名为《Serious Games：Games That Educate，Train，and Inform》的书。我们都很兴奋地发现这些有趣的项目涉及颠覆性的艺术游戏，虚拟模组以及与恐惧间的斗争。我们的文章《Proof of Learning: Assessment in Serious Games》便引用了许多相关的论文和书籍。甚至我们这本书的序论还被翻译成了中文并被发布于中国的游戏开发杂志上。

serious games(from amazon)

今年夏天，我进行一个项目研究，即为了了解当前的教育游戏开发状态。我希望了解我们在之前书籍中所提到的问题是否仍然困扰着开发者，以及是否出现了新的挑战。我知道教育部门最近刚刚发布了教育技术开发人员指南，其SBIR文件夹有一半内容是关于教育游戏。如今的教育技术投资飞速增长，根据Ambient Insights，2014年基于游戏的学习产品的消费者所创造的收益已经达到了3.28亿美元。

虽然edSurge在最近的文章中提到，“教育技术在2015年上半年已经创造了16亿美元的收益”，但是数字往往很容易让人产生误解。这是因为教育技术同样也包含后端管理软件或照片分享应用。不只是关于游戏。此外，你所认为的学校花费在创造性教育类游戏的钱可能是用于互动平台上。甚至连学习游戏的数值可能更多的是关于语言学习程序以及像Luminosity的大脑训练，而不是传统意义上在教室里学习游戏。

但可以肯定的是，虽然所有的这些内容很复杂，但是你可以通过向教育类游戏开发者传递我的调查而帮助我们进一步理解教育游戏的现状。我希望这一研究能够带来一些具有政策性的建议，特别是对非利润型组织，学校和政府机构有帮助的内容。我同时还组织了一对一的访问，如果你是一名教育类游戏开发者并想要接受访问，请告诉。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The Current State of Educational Game Development

by Sande Chen

10 years ago, David Michael and I wrote a book called Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform. We were very excited to learn about these interesting projects that ranged from subversive art games to Unreal mods to conquer phobias. Our article, “Proof of Learning: Assessment in Serious Games,” has been cited in numerous papers and books. We have even had the introductory chapter of the book translated in Chinese and published in one of China’s local game development magazines.

This summer, I have been undertaking a research project to understand the current state of educational game development. I want to discover if the issues we reported in our book are still plaguing developers and if any new challenges have arisen. I do know that the Department of Education has recently released its Ed Tech Developer’s Guide and that half of its SBIR portfolio now consists of educational games. Educational technology investments have been skyrocketing and according to Ambient Insights, revenues generated by consumers of game-based learning products were around 328 million in 2014.

But, as edSurge notes in this recent article, “Education Technology Deals Reach $1.6 Billion in First Half of 2015,” numbers can be misleading. That’s because educational technology could also mean backend administrative software or a photo sharing app. They’re not necessarily games. Moreover, money spent by schools that you’d think is being spent on innovative educational games may actually be going to interactive blackboards. Even the numbers for game-based learning may be more reflective of language learning programs and brain trainers like Luminosity than educational games for the classroom.

To be sure, all of this is complicated, but you can help me understand what’s going on by circulating my survey to educational game developers. My hope is that the research will bring about policy recommendations, specifically to non-profit organizations, schools and government agencies. I am also conducting one-on-one interviews, so if you’re an educational game developer who’d like to be interviewed, please let me know.(source:gamasutra)