How does online learning compete with Grand Theft Auto?

Interesting topic to start Bruce.

Firstly you need to ask if there are any IDs who play games on a regular basis or are aware of games.

That will certainly help for a mixed perspectiive.

I grew up with video games but not the same quality as exists now and still play (although my ttime is heavily limited these days but I keep up to date)

I really doubt she isn't or knows someone who's going to play GTA V. (As she's a 17 year old with enough time on her hands..)

The first GTA was on the psx and was very, very simple in comparison to the sandbox games we have now.

You wonder why a 17 year old girl plays a game where she can fly around in a city in a helicopter and then steal a car and then drive it into the river and then...(Please insert open-ended choice here.)

The 'why' she plays and the pay-off is very simple. She has two things in the game:

Control and Open-Ended Freedom!

To put it another way:

1. You have a folder with printed notes and picture to read.

2. Or you have a sandbox with toy car, building block, pirate ships etc.

Which do you prefer?

My view on this however is not saying that powerpoint slides are not an effective tool for training. They are simply another tool such as video games.

The second question you need to be asking is when your daughter is older (In her twenties) and starts working is will she and her generation actually decide to make a stand and choose to do training that is fun!

(As in similar to games they play!)

Now unless there's a massive change shift in the perception of training or L&D Departments (which could happen as the 'oldies' retire) then it's not something that's going to happen yet.

This really depends on your daughters generation.

Now to put things in perspective Bruce. Your daughter plays video games, ok. Now she lives in the UK.

The biggest gaming market in the world is in China.

I do not think that people in the UK will know exactly how big those gaming companies are and how much they effect the major industry in Asia.

They are not on the same scale here like GTA V. Heard of Romance of the Three Kingdoms?

If you want to look for the change in industry then look at China, Korea, Japan.

 If those office workers decide they want to have training through games then it'll happen pretty easily.

My advice for those who want to learn about games would be to look here:

Extra Credits videos by Penny Arcade

http://www.youtube.com/user/ExtraCreditz

That will give an idea of game design etc.

Then to become aware of current games and an idea about them look at TotalBiscuit.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TotalHalibut

A Brit in the USA who provides insight on video games. His 'First Impressions' videos give you enough detail on new and older releases.

As an alternative to actually playing a video game you could try a walkthrough instead to gain some of the experience playing it without spending several hours.

Nicholas

'Please Understand'

This man is the president and CEO of a very well-known gaming company in Japan and the USA.

Saturo Iwata.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ARoen_7WzM

Nicholas

Here is some insight from a gamer (me).  I've played many games over the past several years, from Atari to Xbox 360. It isn't just about earning badges or mindless violence (although it does help to relieve some stress from time to time). For me it's always been about the great storytelling and memorable characters.  These are two elements that all great games share. Great characters gets you emotionally attached to the game. You root for this hero/heroine and want to help them with their mission/goal. Great stories keep you engaged. You want to find out what comes next and get excited as more of it gets revealed. 

Does the GTA franchise have extreme violence, great gameplay dynamics, and an immersive world? Yes, but it also has a great storyline and great characters.  While you are playing the game, more and more is revealed about the character and characters you meet. NPCs (non-playable characters) are not just there to present you with your next mission or task, but they have they are also fully developed characters with backgrounds and attitudes that you can engage with.

I don't believe that corporations will ever make the leap to create training in the same league as GTA. (Although the US Army is using something similar to train soldiers on computers that simulate real world missions and plays very similar to GTA.)  And I don't think it has to, but it has to create more compelling training. 

Bruce,  how many courses have you built that had several lesson modules in it? How many of them had characters or presenters? Now in each of these lessons that had characters, were they actually fully developed characters or were they just presenters. Presenters being that they just talked about the lesson, did a few display interactions and was then forgotten by the next lesson. 

Here is where I'm getting at. Let's take a New Employee course that has several different modules. Normally (from the ones that I've seen) you have a character/presenter there to "Talk TO" the user and tell them all about how wonderful it will be to work there. What about starting with a character that is also new and learning as you the user teaches them. This character will have an actual personality and their own quirks like maybe being forgetful, or has a silly catch phrase. The user will also be able to see this character grow as he progress through the lessons. 

I would love to build a course like that, but alas most of my clients just want information dumps. I plan on doing a blog about character development which I'll pull in some ideas from games, books, and movies.

This is just my 2 cents

Jerson

How can a bicycle compete with an aircraft carrier? Similar question Different purposes should associate with different expectations. 

On the flip side, I think we'll eventually be able to take advantage of technology advances in games (artificial intelligence) to generate adaptive experiences. Until then, we have a great big real world to accompany our online learning

Thanks for the comments everyone.

The question for me is not so much about the motivations, or the "experience", (good courses do not need to be "feature-laden"), but about the expectations.

She knows what to expect from a screen, iPad or phone. She's growing up with feature rich leisure time experiences. When we then give her an experience on that device which is "less" than she is used to, then the natural response, even if it is a subject she is interested in will surely be disappointment?

@Steve - thanks for the contribution, but sorry but I do not think your example holds. In your example there are obvious differences, yet we are providing two digital experiences on (potentially) the same device, and I think they will be compared directly. I am not sure that the vast % of companies WILL bridge this divide, if I am right in my assumptions than the divide between the "home" and "work" experience will keep on getting wider. The US Army training, (and other immersion training) is not quite the average corporate/company Induction Course!

Perhaps companies will always be different and "behind", but that puts us in a real problem situation when we de-motivate people who have just started. Maybe we give everyone a Kindle Fire pre-loaded with the corporate induction before they join, and then the "course" just becomes the questions, and scenario-based role playing?

I completely agree with the perceptions from @Jerson that there is a culture change in the Far East, but then it often takes years and years for those changes to cross to the Western World - if ever. My guess is that the Western World will fight back with the "old ways" first, and I guess that fits into the question I am asking, what are we actually DOING  to prepare ourselves for these issues, or do we just slap down a generation of people who are completely used to, and expecting media-rich experiences all the time?

Again in answer to @Jerson, I have only ever built one course (with Phil Mayor....5 modules), that had characters that had a home to live in, were influenced by what happened in that home, and who developed skills and thought-processes as we went along. But one out of 3000+ online creations? I guess that is also my point - the gulf is huge between what we are actually able to do and what we would like to do.

Hi Bruce,

In my experience and I grew up in a city that had the fastest development of technology in the world (due to having a small population and a lot of money) and then the application of that technology for the general public.

I have noticed that in the UK (and Europe) that technology and culture change tends to happen very, very slowly in the Wesern Culture.

Anyone who has grew up in Asia understands the difference. But they still consider the 'Western' model to be superior in a few cases.

London has Oyster Cards as an example. Great, now I was using them for trains, buses metro and for buying stuff in shops about 10 years before they were introduced in the UK. Then the UK started using them for the underground.

We just don't have the same level of companies that effect change. Not on the massive scale anyway. Heard of Tencent?

Now with regards to the younger generation I honestly doubt that much will change that much in 5 years when the younger generation start work.

It's more likely gradual change will take place in the development of training.

You could give them a headstart....by giving them a say in how they want training.

Nicholas

I can see some of the benefits of immersive technology for types of training and feel that lots of what game developers do can be used in elearning.

I don't see us developing these immersive courses as standard, the main reason I say this is cost.  Companies are actively seeking out single freelancers or small elearning companies over larger more established companies because overheads are lower and cost is less.

Most companies will not be prepared to pay the premium required to develop these game like environments, I expect some of you may say "but that cost will come down".  This I doubt very much, in the last two generations of games consoles cost has increased a major title for the PS3/X box costs approx $30-60 million to develop and these costs are going up not down. 

As developers we should be looking at polishing our design work, great examples are Mouse Party and the Levis Water info graphic, I see what I do more in the realm of web developers and designers, a lot of the examples I see would not be accepted as a web site so why are they accepted as elearning?

We are comparing apples and oranges with Games and elearning, I fear that most courses developed as games or using immersive technology would lose the message that is being convey.  I can see why the Army would use these technologies, and flight simulators are a great teaching technology, I just feel these will always be the exception to the rule. 

So does that mean that corporates will have to apologize to people at some point that they cannot afford to create the same experiences they are used to seeing at home on their devices?

This is the thing...how do they EXPLAIN this, or is it something that no-one ever bothers to explain, and it is the great "unsaid topic" from what I can see.

I don't see that learning has to be produced as a game and doesn't therefore need the budget of games.

Elearning should be well designed, intuitive and fulfil its purpose, that doesn't have to be expensive. Elearning should be looking at matching the quality of websites, apps, tablets/Modern OS's and ensuring that the user experience is great.

I don't think a corporate needs to apologise because their relearning doesn't look like GTA because it shouldn't. We can build high quality interactive learning with the tools we have at little or no extra cost, no apologies needed.

Should Lynda.com worry about gamifying their online training to compete with Grand Theft Auto?

I am not saying that we need to produce games. What I am saying is that our audience may not understand and appreciate the reasons for the difference in digital media they are presented with, and get de-motivated when they see that there IS a difference. 

My daughter, (and apparently here peers), perceive anything that looks like a slide to be outdated if she is to be believed, so what is their reaction going to be when they get to the work environment and get anything lesser than they are used to seeing on screens/iPads etc., having their "baseline" as online gaming experiences?

I doubt that we CAN produce anything that is as immersive as a game, and they view that as interaction, from what I can work out.

It is the juxtaposition of the two experiences, and their psychological reaction to them that I am trying to explore here, not whether we can produce great learning. After all - they may (Heaven help us.....), be asked to read a book at some point at work - that is OK, because it is a book, (although ,may have to get them an online version of it...).

I suppose my point is that the same audience will devour websites, Facebook (unless you look at the latest stats), twitter, apps etc without complaining that they don't look like GTA.

Look at what web designers are doing, they are only pages but on some sites you would not know this , slides are a building block but does a user ever need to know they are only viewing slides, probably not, in most case it is just semantics.

Based on that, i would argue that we need as a whole to revisit our design skills to ensure we keep pace with what they see day in day out and probably look how we build courses, perhaps more app like and less linear otherwise I don't see the need for drastic change.

Hey Bruce,

My point was about cost and weight. Both are used to transport things One is light and does one job. The other is heavy and does thousands of jobs. Phil mentioned budget earlier in the thread. The team sizes and budgets for these titles are tremendous. I think the comparison holds well:)

And I don't think the expectations game is new. We've been dealing with some kind of expectations adjustment for quite some time. In the military, we worried about this quite a bit about 15 years ago. We upped our game a bit (some services spent tons of money on adapting games), the new kids on the block recognized that "does the job" is good enough, even if they scoffed at the output occassionally.

People adjust their own expectations.

I used to be a big time gamer. I don't play as much any more ( and now tend to play different types of games) but I can still get sucked in on occasion. I play for entertainment and for the competitive aspect of these games. I love the visuals and the high end production quality. Like Phil says it costs big bucks to produce this stuff.

Even though I love game play, I don't necessarily need to be entertained when I'm trying to learn something. Sometimes linear instruction is fine. Sometimes I'd rather read a paragraph in a book or on a website then watch a rambling tutorial.  I think Chantel was right when she said that if people are intrinsically motivated to learn - they will find the information they need any way they can. If not, they will perceive whatever you try to do as a waste of time.

As Phil mentioned about learning from web designers we can do the same with video games.

That's why I posted a link to Saturo Iwata. He's a pretty smart guy.

I can look at their industry and learn more outside my comfort zone.

I don't look at Extra Credits or Game Walkthroughs for the entertainment value.

Depends how you want to commit your time and energy.

Nicholas

Great discussion! I'm with Jerson and Phil on this one but totally get what Bruce is saying. I think in reality it comes down to relevance and moment of need. When in need I couldn't care less about story lines, engaging interaction or visual presentation. I just want the information I need. Now! 

Now, when I'm forced to go through training that can be different. If I absolutely don't care about the topic my first response would be to get something that's short so I can just finish it. However, if designed properly I could actually become (somewhat) interested... 

I believe Relevance will always be key. We are being asked to build information dumps, awareness training and other types of courses that often hold little relevance to the learner and are not meant to address an actual performance gap. Ideally we'd all decline such projects but since the bills will keep coming irregardless we'll keep creating these courses. I guess it's our job to make our courses as relevant as possible. In whatever form required. 

I would re-visit this topic in a few years time to see if the younger generation decides to make these changes.

Most of the input remains on the change we would make but how do we really know unless a 17 year old comes onto this thread and posts their input directly?

That's the heart of the matter. Everything else is discussion and speculation. (Which is still useful and fun/engaging...)

Nicholas

Remember this question was posed to a 17 year old girl who plays video games.

And was directed towards if she would sit down to a powerpoint corporate induction.

Still better to ask that generation (Western) and post a response here 'in their words'.

Nicholas

@Bruce Have you shown your daughter this? http://www.brokencoworker.com/ 

Games are not made by 17 year olds, that generation doesn't start making changes until they are in their 30s or 40s, corporate training is built to give training to all and not just the new starters and must try and encompass all learning styles, it is normally a compromise.

your second question

Steve jobs famously said

"

You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.

"

the typical 17 year old when encountering this situation will sit down and listen to the  ppt or do the training, it is about doing what is acceptable in that situation and at this point they will conform or be shown the door. 

I'll agree with your points Phil.

''Games are not made by 17 year olds, that generation doesn't start making changes until they are in their 30s or 40s''

So that's the generation that the contributors to this thread are in.

And you stated revising design values overall but no massive changes are necessary.

We don't create training for entertainment purposes as Rockstar does with GTA or any other video game company.

I asked a 20 year old I know Bruce's question to his daughter. He responded with 'training is all the same really.'

I don't think he really cared about interactivity because as you say because it's just something he had to do in that situation.

I would just be interested to hear the viewpoint of a 17 year old on the thread. (Which is quite unlikely to happen.)

Thanks Phil!

Nicholas

A great issue to raise Bruce!

I think the tech is catching up (example: Storyline!) to allow us to provide pretty creative learning solutions, assuming we can use the tools to build them.  I'm thinking of that video/hand drawn illustration approach so popular now-- that was just existing tech plus creativity and it spawned thousands of copycats.  Good teachers, content, narrative-- that will always be the key piece.  Dud content- no matter how required it might be-- is still dud content and there's only so much you can do with it, even with a Hollywood budget.

A big issue imho is how companies evaluate their induction/training and that challenges flips to us-- what is the ROI?  How can we provide clients with justification/s for investing in decent/engaging/fun learning solutions?  Training is seen as a sunk cost from which there is no tangible benefit.  If a corporate client has a compelling $-based rationale for investing in e-learning, we're all a lot better off.  And if we can come up w/ a $-based rationale for creating an even more compelling experience, that will naturally follow.

Thanks Bud.

Yes....ROI...the elephant in the room every time!

Some more thoughts about it from me here - https://www.opensesame.com/blog/learning-resolutions-successfully-measuring-roi

What a nice topic to discuss!

I'm an instructional designer who has been gaming since she was 9 years old  Here are my thoughts.

First of all, keep in mind that minds cannot evolve in, say, fifty years. We - as ID's - are dealing with the same brain structures for the people who will now be born and for the people who are now around fifty, and even beyond that. So it really has to do with what you're used to, I think. And nowadays, the generation that has started working, and will be starting working, will expect more. They're used to flashy, to being entertained, to being 'provoked' into action. 

Even myself, I get extremely bored with Powerpoint presentations and I wish people would just find a more entertaining way to inform me. Without taking notes, I would never remember anything the presenter said - and I'm usually the only one taking notes. And I'm not even 30 yet.

Maybe a nice example. I once tutored a child who had a lot of trouble with his history lessons. However, when we started talking about Greek gods, he could name all of them. Flawless. I was really surprised and asked him why he knew this. His answer: "They are all opponents in my video game." So he learned about the Greek gods and also about the things they carried and powers they possessed, because the characters in the video game used them against him. 

So yes, I think we will have to go in the gamification direction, or at least into the activation direction.

At my work, we also do events. These events were always powerpoint centered. Now, I give workshops for my colleagues to try to get them to think about two things: One: what is your goal? Do you want to give information, activate people, have them work on something, apply knowledge, etc? Two: which activity do you choose to achieve this goal? There are certain activities that go with certain goals, but more important, some activities just don't fit with certain goals. And generally, they don't end up with presentations, because their goal is almost never just to inform. 

I'm a big fan of activating people; whether through clicking on your screen or working on something with a team. I believe that the end of 'e-reading' types of e-learning is close.