I feel bad that I haven’t had a chance to write a post the past few weeks. I can not believe how quickly time passes when you are trying to juggle work with a baby. I understand now that it gets even more hectic when you have to travel.
A few weeks ago, I was asked to participate in the InPlay Conference in Toronto to talk about making entertaining AND educational games. The conference was really fun and informative. I felt honored that they asked me to participate as a panelist.
We were asked to talk about the balancing act that comes with creating entertaining and educational properties for kids. In the past, I would often lose someone when I would start talking about GoGo Lingo as an educational game for kids; many would just hear the word educational and automatically think boring. I understand this. Many times, I’d review an educational game and realize that the game was the reward for completing the educational exercise, which is typically a boring drill and kill interaction. So one of our goals with GoGo Lingo was to change this perception. We believe that learning Spanish can be fun and that all of the steps that you go through to learn Spanish can be done through the game. People that review GoGo Lingo sometimes say that we are tricking kids into learning Spanish. And we take that as a compliment because what we think they are really saying is that we’ve created something that is truly engaging, that kids want to play, and that actually gives them something of real value.
I am so happy to have met a lot of fantastic people at the conference. From that experience alone I feel the perception of educational gaming is on the cusp of change.
What do you think?
