SyntaxBomb - Indie Coders

I remember Edutainment software being a staple of both the 80's and 90's. My question is whether or not it is still a lucrative market for software developers? There are thousands of tutoring website available with varying levels of interactivity. It would appear development has shifted to web based platforms, so has the era of small teams or a single person writing the next successful Oregon Trail long gone? What do you think and why?

The best edutainment games:
http://www.gamesradar.com/the-best-edutainment-games/

Edutainment as a Modern Technology of Education:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814066968

Quote:

QuoteEdutainment is also a growing paradigm within the science museum community in the United States. This approach emphasizes fun and enjoyment, often at the expense of educational content. The idea is that people are used to flashy, polished entertainment venues like movie theaters and theme parks that they demand similar experiences at science centers and museums. Thus, a museum is seen as just another business competing for entertainment dollars from the public, rather than as an institution that serves the public welfare through education or historical preservation.

-Criticism from article at http://www.edalive.com/edutainment-software/

I'm curious to know as well.  I have a typing game idea I've done some work on.
I have no idea how viable it is in today's market.

I think most people assume skills such as typing are just picked up naturally in today's tech focused world. I find very often with younger people (wow I sound old!) they are quick to adopt new technologies and can find solutions to problems easy. But actually have zero practical knowledge on even the basics of computing such as what even QWERTY stands for.

I am very curious how basic computer skills are taught in classrooms today. I once met a teacher who still used 90's software as teaching tools in her class because of how the youngsters liked the simplistic cartoon graphics. It was tricky getting it working in modern Windows but with some image mounting and use of compatibility files I was able to get it up and running for her on a non XP machine. The point I'm trying to make though is old teaching software is still good teaching software, since the fundamentals of knowledge have not changed. (Long as you forget common core exists)

http://www.knowledgeadventure.com/school/mathblaster/Age5-7.aspx
I can recall playing the first version of this in kindergarten. (The 1987 release) My class was pretty jealous because the kids in the other room had access to Math Blaster all the time, but we got Oregon Trail and others I which have faded from my memory. If you can get schools to buy your software I imagine its a real cash cow.

Quotepeople assume skills such as typing are just picked up naturally in today's tech focused world.

Yeah, that's the main critique people have hearing about the typing game idea.  A lot of people say "I already know how to type, why do I need this?"  And I understand that criticism, and I think that's where the challenge is going to lie from a marketing perspective.  My goal is to sell to three types of people:
1. People who are starting from no typing at all or 'hunt & peck'.
2. People who can type, but would like to type faster or have formed a few bad habits such as loving the Backspace key too much, not always pressing keys with the correct finger for that key/jumping the hand around, and pressing the Shift key on the same side of the keyboard as the intended key.  I fit in this category myself, so making the game will actually help me, as I'll have to playtest the crap out of it
3. People who can type 80 WPM already and want a gameplay challenge. 

I find most typing games make one of two critical mistakes:
1. They assume people can already type and start off way too fast.  See Typing of the Dead, etc. 
2. They are boring or clinical.  See Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, etc. 

So yeah, I've got my work cut out for me if I attempt that game, heheh

To me the challenge in making an educational game is not neglecting either the game part or the education part.  I think that's where stuff like Oregon Trail did so well.  It was fun to play in its own right.  A lot of edutainment would not be played if there was another game next to it that  was about the same but did not include the math problems, for instance.

QuoteIf you can get schools to buy your software I imagine its a real cash cow.

Oh, yeah, I bet you could do really well if you could get an entire school district or even state to pick up your software.  I have two kids in school, a nine-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy.  They mostly talk about playing educational games online at school.  So I think most of it is Flash/HTML-5 stuff.  Funny thing is, a game called Duck Life, which is a very simple online game with primitive graphics, was all the rage in my daughter's third grade class last year.

The brilliance of Oregon Trail certainly was that none of the "educational" elements seemed forced or a burden to the player. It literally just felt like a game or simulation?

I think this game is very underrated if not a bit obscure. It teaches you through logic gates how to build electrical circuits. It took me years to track it down because I had mistaken it for a Commodore 64 came with a very similar premise. It would be ripe for a remake since nothing else like it has been made since.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/robot-odyssey

Quote from: IanMartin on September 19, 2017, 23:43:05
2. They are boring or clinical.  See Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, etc. 

I learned to type with Mavis Beacon, you summed it up pretty well.

Oregon Trail was definitely something people played just to play the game, not that they 'had' to.  I think that's the secret sauce, to find that thing that makes it a game more than a lesson, but still keeps the lesson.  It's like you're trying to make a fun textbook or something! heheh  Most of the educational stuff my kids have played for very long at all were a lot more game than education. 

I think simulations are a lot like that.  But I see those not being as well received anymore.  It used to be you bought a flight simulator and read a giant think manual before you even tried to play it.  Now I think people are leaving a negative review if they can't do everything in the plane within 15 minutes.  So it's really hard to make a serious sim when people demand instant accessibility and won't read a manual.  You have to reduce it to its simplest form.  And then you're still going to have grognards that want everything included for realism.  I really like sims, though I'm in that same boat, not enough time to learn to play them really if they are complex, and end up playing simple things, heheheh

Robot Odyssey looks really cool.  I have seen a few things similar to that, like games where you would make circuits or program robots.  I can't remember any of the titles of them at the moment.  I've been watching my six year old boy play with a Snap Circuits set.  I can see him getting really into something like that soon. 

"I learned to type with Mavis Beacon"
Ha!  Really?  I didn't think anyone would have gotten that far with it.  I've tried to play it a few times and couldn't stick with it.  I thought Typer Shark was pretty fun though.  But I had one I loved and played a lot on my Atari called MasterType:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/atari-8-bit/mastertype/screenshots/gameShotId,587203/

Doing a search for "edutainment" on Steam came up with only 5 titles!  So it may be a market just waiting for something to buy?