Worldwide, more than a half billion people are playing games. Both, children and adults, are investing a lot of time to play all sorts of games. Actually, the cumulative time spent on video games worldwide exceeds 3 billion hours a week (McGonigal, 2010). The games are not only used for entertainment and leisure, many use this time in a productive and serious way, by playing games for educational purposes. In 2010 the Serious Games worldwide turnover was 1500 million Euros (Michaud, Alvarez, Alvarez, & Djaouti, 2012), offering products in areas like health & safety, culture and management etc. Actually, it is a rapid growing business, but still much slower than the business of entertainment games. We are analysing the reasons for this differences from a business perspective, and one main difference is how the different stakeholder reach their target group. For this we would like you to share your experience!
If you are a producer, how do you find the right distribution channel? And do you actually know who the customer is? Possible customers:
- End-user or private person
- Enterprise or business company
- Government
- Public institutions (charity association, research centres, etc)
If you are a customer, how do you find a Serious Game matching your requirements?
References
McGonigal, J. (February 2010). Gaming can make a better world. TED Ideas worth spreading .
Michaud, l., Alvarez, J., Alvarez, V., & Djaouti, D. (2012). Serious Games: Issues, offer and market. Montpellier, France: IDATE.