Originally posted by MET student Brian Haas on 24/03/2018
This is the elevator pitch I created for my Venture Pitch. It is a fictional Educational venture lead by Steam the worlds leading video game distribution company. Enjoy!
Steam Education
3 responses to “Steam Education”
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Understanding this is Fictional, I honestly think it is the most exciting of the pitches. Valve (the developers behind the Steam platform) are famously innovative and known for redefining genres within the videogame industry. Couple this, with Steam’s existing dominance on the digital videogame storefront with its massive userbase and you have an extremely viable platform. Logistics aside, I am also a huge fan of leveraging videogames for education in an effective manner. This summer I took ETED 565D – Digital games and learning wherein we explored the creation of educational games that are actually fun to play. It became obvious that most educational games fail, not for lack of educational content, but because they are bad games. This pitch suggests we could avoid this, by starting with existing games (many of which are already educational) and build a platform around them.
Adrian,
I took ETEC565 this summer, and often thought that there should be a way that some educational program developer get a hold of popular video game source code to create educational games; of course, this is very pie in the sky. I feel that Steam is the next best thing whereby lessons are introduced to current popular video games. In fact, I remember halfway through the week-long ETEC565 Dr. Paul Darvasi introduced how Grand Theft Auto 5, one of the greatest grossing games of all time, can be used as a playground. Of course, a teacher would have to be very careful how they would use a game like GTA5; and perhaps this is where Steam could help. On the other hand, an educator could use something a little more tame like Minecraft Education Edition.
I have a strong personal interest in this partly because I have been developing content myself with STEAM games. The idea itself is tantalizing to me, but I am curious about how the target educator audience would receive this pitch. Commercial off the shelf games can be quite pricey, making capital an issue. In addition, games are exceptionally flexible, perhaps too flexible; there would have to be parameters that limit certain factors and encourage others. Navigating the balance between what is educational and what isn’t can be surprisingly subjective for certain games. For example, games like GTA5 may not seem educational at all from the start, but may provide niche learning experiences depending on how well a teacher navigates this and with what group of students. An inherent topic of contention with video games is also the prerequisites. STEAM and its games can only be as effective as the computer that is running it, and for schools that lack the infrastructure and support to make this endeavor happen, this is a venture that wouldn’t come to fruition.
Personally I would definitely invest in it, but I’m not sure if certain school districts or educators are ready to play ball yet.