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Meaningful Play 2018 at Michigan State University

Poster Information

TitleEducational Game Production Using the USC Game Production Method
Presenter(s)Dennis Ramirez and Laura Beukema
SessionConference Reception, Game Exhibition, and Poster Session
TimeThursday, October 11, 7:00p-10:00p
LocationMSU Union Ballroom
FormatPoster Presentation
DescriptionEven in AAA environments there is a constant commentary about how difficult it is to produce and ship games. Projects can face a variety of pitfalls such as bad concepts, bad gameplay, bad time estimates, and lack of funding all of which can ruin or severely impact a project. This leads to detrimental practices like crunch for the sake of shipping a product on time that most likely will have bugs on release. As a result, there is a striking amount of projects which have been abandoned or do not see wide release.

Educational games introduce additional problems that may interfere with production stemming mainly from research and assessment of the intervention. While traditional game studios sometimes have a bit of flexibility when it comes to release dates (some games are delayed in the hopes of creating a better product), educational games often have less flexibility due to the fact that a delay can impact testing which in turn impacts recruiting participants, disseminating information, securing funding, or meeting research deadlines/goals.

This poster provides a possible approach to the development of educational games and aims to be familiar to those who have experience in game production, while friendly enough to be useful to newcomers who have never created a game.

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