GaLA_DEL D4.4_WP 4
D4.4 MARKET AND VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS 4
Deliverable n. D4.4
Market and value chain
analysis 4
WORK PACKAGE NUMBER
TASK NUMBER
DELIVERABLE NUMBER
DELIVERY DATE
TASK LEADER
AUTHOR
WP 4
T4.1
D4.4
15/11/2014
Atos
Atos
Date
Version
17/11/2014
2.0
ABSTRACT
The aim of this report is to provide a market and industry perspective of
the domain of Serious Games. This is the fourth and final iteration of
the market and value chain analysis that is delivered at the end of every
year of the GaLA project life-time. In this version, the focus of the
market research was on the demand side, i.e. consumers and
customers. Our analysis is based on secondary sources of information,
as well as on the results of a survey of potential and actual customer
organisations. Overall observations considering the 4 years evolution of
the market and value chain analysis are presented within the conclusive
remarks.
STATUS
Version 2.0 _ 17/11/2014
PU (Public)
PP Restricted to other programme participants (including the
Commission Services)
Restricted to a group specified by the consortium (including the
Commission Services) (please specify the group)
Confidential, only for members of the consortium (including the
Commission Services)
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DOCUMENT REVISION LOG
VERSION
DATE
DESCRIPTION
AUTHOR
1.1
10/09/2014
First draft of Y4
Lydia Montandon /
Carmen Padrón
1.7
1/11/2014
Revisions
Carmen Padrón
2.0
17/11/2014
Updates and final version
Lydia Montandon
Internal reviewer
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
While previous versions of this deliverable analysed the market from the point of view of the offer
(developers/distributors) of Serious Games (SG), this document provides an overview and tentative analysis
of the market from the demand side (consumers / customers).
The current analysis draws a picture of companies that use or are potential users / customers of Serious
Game products and is principally based on data gathered from 114 respondents1. Other external sources of
information on the demand for games and gamification have been consulted as well.
Interestingly, there seems to be differing views regarding market demand of serious games. On the one hand
market demand for serious games is not clear does not convince traditional publishers to take risks, offering
more diversified products. On the other hand, mobile edugames are on the rise, in particular for the
consumers segment, which pushes content producers to augment their offer for this target. What seems to
be the common point between the two perspectives is the concept of ‘engagement’. Games are considered
to engage more than other media, and this factor seems to be crucial in an era of information overload, both
for learning and awareness raising purposes.
Developers and distributors must pay attention to the evolution of technology and the rapid rate in which
product substitution is taking place and has an impact on the need and supply of content adapted to this
technology (i.e. smart mobile devices).
Overall, we observe that the surveyed organisations are familiar with games and gamification. They tend to
use game-based solutions to address their main challenges, directly or indirectly. In particular, they tend to
use games to improve employees’ behaviours (towards innovation, creativity and team building), in addition
to other competences. In general, the most important reasons why organisations are reluctant to use games
or gamification are firstly the lack of awareness, information and evidence of success, and secondarily the
practicality of use, costs and difficulty to estimate the Return on Investment. However, from the information
obtained, it is clear that technical aspects do not represent the main obstacles. Finally, there are some
variations in the order of the barriers depending on the organisations’ industry sector, size and to the
position/role of the respondent within the company.
Although progress has been made towards getting a better picture of the Serious Game market, research
lines have been identified for future work. One way to get more insight could be to extend the survey in
order to consider a wider geographical scope, a wider sectorial scope, target the consumers’ sector as well,
and gather more precise information about the type of games used, the technological support, the
providers, the approximate budget, etc.
1
It is not possible to ensure that all respondents are from different companies, but we may assume that at least 100
companies have been surveyed.
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Table of contents
DOCUMENT REVISION LOG ................................................................................................................................. 2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY......................................................................................................................................... 3
Table of contents ................................................................................................................................................. 4
FIGURES ........................................................................................................................................................... 6
TABLES ............................................................................................................................................................. 6
1
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 7
1.1
Scope of the Deliverable...................................................................................................................... 7
1.2
Methodology, Information Sources and Interaction with other WPs ................................................. 8
2
Inputs from desk research on the market demand for SG ........................................................................ 11
3
Insights from 21st Century Business Challenges Survey............................................................................ 14
4
3.1
Overview............................................................................................................................................ 14
3.2
Challenges.......................................................................................................................................... 14
3.3
Use of Games or Gamification........................................................................................................... 15
3.4
Advantages of using Game-based solutions...................................................................................... 17
3.5
Reasons for Games or Gamification use ........................................................................................... 18
3.6
Future use of Game-based solutions................................................................................................. 20
3.7
Barriers to the use of Games or Gamification ................................................................................... 21
3.8
Demographics .................................................................................................................................... 23
3.8.1
Functional Area.......................................................................................................................... 24
3.8.2
Industry Sector .......................................................................................................................... 25
3.8.3
Number of Employees ............................................................................................................... 28
3.8.4
Interviewee’s position / role ..................................................................................................... 29
Conclusive Remarks ................................................................................................................................... 31
4.1
Summary of findings .......................................................................................................................... 31
4.1.1
Desktop research on market demand ....................................................................................... 31
4.1.2
Demand side survey .................................................................................................................. 31
4.1.3
Research outcomes Y4 .............................................................................................................. 33
4.2
Overall observations considering the 4 years evolution of the market and value chain analysis .... 34
5
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................... 36
6
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................... 37
6.1
GaLA documents................................................................................................................................ 37
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6.2
7
D4.4 MARKET AND VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS 4
Other Sources of Information (updated Y4) ...................................................................................... 38
Annexes ..................................................................................................................................................... 40
7.1
Survey questions ............................................................................................................................... 40
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FIGURES
Figure 1: Information sources and interaction with other Tasks ........................................................................ 8
Figure 2: Screenshots of the web survey .......................................................................................................... 10
Figure 3: Challenges faced by organisations ..................................................................................................... 15
Figure 4: Rate of organisations using games or gamification............................................................................ 16
Figure 5: Advantages of game-based solutions................................................................................................. 17
Figure 6: Correlation between respondents' job and perceived advantage of game-based solutions ............ 18
Figure 7: Reasons for the use of games or gamification ................................................................................... 19
Figure 8: Radar of advantages vs actual use of games ...................................................................................... 20
Figure 9: Plans to use game-based solutions in the future ............................................................................... 21
Figure 11: Reasons for not using games or gamification .................................................................................. 22
Figure 10: Barriers to the use of games when planning their use within 3 years .......................................... 22
Figure 12: Radar graph of barriers in relation to respondent's job................................................................... 23
Figure 13: Geographical distribution of the organisations participating in the survey .................................... 24
Figure 14: Respondents' functional areas ......................................................................................................... 25
Figure 15: Clustering of respondents per industry sector ................................................................................. 26
Figure 16: Relation between sectors and identified barriers ............................................................................ 27
Figure 17: Number of employees ...................................................................................................................... 28
Figure 18: Relation between organisation size and identified barriers ............................................................ 29
Figure 19: Interviewees' jobs............................................................................................................................. 30
TABLES
Table 1: Comparative table of market segmentation ....................................................................................... 13
Table 2: Initial research questions and current findings ................................................................................... 34
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1 Introduction
This deliverable is the fourth and last instance of the Market and Value Chain Analysis of the project. Every
year an update has been prepared, taking into account the market evolution and the progresses made by
the project in defining and understanding Serious Games (SG) trends and potential impact.
This year, the approach is slightly different because instead of focusing on the side of the offer – Serious
Games providers – we analyse the side of the demand. Therefore the methodology and structure of the
document differ from previous instances of the deliverable.
In this deliverable, we will continue to consider the most common acceptation of Serious Games, which
implies that
a game has a clear objective beyond pure entertainment, and is referred to “meaningful play”.2 The
“Serious” adjective entails that games are used in areas such as education, defence, environment planning,
emergency planning, marketing, politics, etc.
The general objective of the study is still about enhancing the GaLA impact, by finding ways to involve the SG
industry and encourage a potential collaboration that can only work if both parties largely benefit. A starting
point has therefore consisted in the analysis of the main characteristics of the SG market in terms of offer
(competition) – this was the focus of previous instances of the deliverable – and of demand (potential users
and customers), which offers a complementary view.
1.1 Scope of the Deliverable
This deliverable aims to help GaLA partners, individuals and organisations interested in SG, perceiving the
specificities of the emerging SG market. The underlying intention is to help improve the impact that the
Network – or the Serious Games Society that will survive beyond the end of the project – may have on the
outside world. The information that has been gathered has the potential to enhance potential collaboration
with the industry and thus promoting a wider adoption of SGs for learning purposes in all the identified
sectors.
The original objective of the market analysis was to study the different areas and the different players in the
Serious Games context and identify characteristics that may be relevant to understanding it. Previous
instances gave an overview of the current market ‘offer’, focusing on the analysis of SG producers and
providers for the different sectors. In this last instance, the objective is to inform on customers (buyers) and
their needs, the market ‘demand’.
In this study, we use our current knowledge about the market and adoption of SG in different sectors and
application domains and we survey organisations with potential interest in the adoption of SG. We are
interested in examining the challenges currently faced by companies and their attitude towards the use of
SG.
2
See experts insights form the NoE in chapter 4 of D4.2 Market and Value Chain Analysis 2.
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In summary, this version of the market and value chain analysis focuses on the demand side, which was the
missing part of the picture after having analysed the offer side during the first three years of the project.
Chapter 2 presents reflexions on the divergent views regarding the commercial demand for Serious Games,
based on recent articles about the gaming market.
Chapter 3 analyses the results of the survey made to the demand side (i.e. potential customers of serious
games) and proposes some interpretations.
Finally, Chapter 4 concludes by providing a summary of relevant observations and discussions, identifying
key findings, and suggestions for future research.
1.2 Methodology, Information Sources and Interaction with other WPs
Figure 1 presents the information sources used for the preparation of this deliverable, as well as the
interaction with other tasks and work packages of the GaLA project. One source of information relies on
external market reports. The current version refers to information provided in the publicly available version
of the recently Ambient Insight Targeted Research Report titled “2013-2018 North America Mobile Edugame
Market” and other sources found on the internet3. The figure also shows that we rely on external industry
views, as in addition to the interviews made to several SG suppliers, this year we have surveyed
organisations from the demand side, i.e. potential customers or users of Serious Games, in an attempt to
understand more about their motivation to use SGs. We teamed up with partners of WP7, in which the
corporate needs for game-based training have been analysed. Additionally, we took advantage of the
stakeholders’ community activities (T4.5-T7.4) to get in contact with organisations currently using SGs or
interested in their usage.
External
Market
Reports
Own
Research
GaLA Experts
& External
Industry
Views
WP4 – T4.1 Market Analysis
WP4 – T4.5 Industry and
Stakeholders Community
WP7 – T7.4 Community
of Corporate Users
Figure 1: Information sources and interaction with other Tasks
3
http://www.ambientinsight.com/Resources/Documents/Ambient-Insight-2013-2018-North-America-MobileEdugame-Market-Abstract.pdf
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Deriving from the open issues identified in the last year’s deliverable, the main questions we wanted to ask
to customers’ organisations were:




Type of relationship with providers
General satisfaction with Serious Games implementation
Future plans related to SG acquisition
Views on the SG market
The underlying question we wanted to understand was which were the main challenges faced by
organisations, how Serious Games – or game-based-solutions – may help addressing them, and whether
games or gamification are actually used by organisations to address those challenges.
Accordingly, and based on the knowledge gained during the project on issues relevant to the demand, we
prepared a set of questions targeted to organisations potentially interested in Serious Games. We designed a
survey titled “21st century business challenges” and launched it.
To ensure a reasonable and significant number of answers, we opted for a short, multiple choice based
questionnaire, which we tested internally before launching it. We made it accessible through the GaLA /
Marketplace section of the Serious Games Society web portal4 and started a communication campaign to
announce it. The survey was publicised through the following channels:






Distribution list of the Nottingham University
Facebook page of the Nottingham University
Linked-in Serious Games community
Facebook page of the Serious Games Society5
Marketplace section of the Serious Game Society6
Atos internal BlueKiwi (internal community similar to Facebook) space on Gamification
The following figure shows screenshots of the implemented online survey. The full list of questions and
multiple choice options can be found in Annex 7.1 Survey questions.
4
http://gala.atosresearch.eu/21st-century-business-challenges-II
https://www.facebook.com/groups/249749305147432/?pnref=lhc
6
http://marketplace.seriousgamessociety.org/pages/view/162902/trends-survey
5
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Figure 2: Screenshots of the web survey
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2 Inputs from desk research on the market demand for SG
In parallel to the survey, we looked at the available sources of information about the market demand for
Serious Games. We found interesting contributions focusing on the business to customer/consumer, which
bring a complementary view to the B2B (Business to business) approach we took for the survey.
Interestingly, there seems to be differing views regarding the market demand for serious games. In June
2013, the New York Times published an article titled: “Injecting the Real World Into Games” (Kimiko de
Freytas-Tamura, 2013). In this article, the author questions the long term demand for Serious Games, in
particular games “inspired by social issues and real-life events.” This article inspired Polygon7, an
organisation dedicated to the review of games, as well as the delivery of news and information about games,
associated to Vox Media8, a growing online publisher in the US (Sarkar, 2013).
The discussion is whether commercial demand for serious games is following the growing trend of serious
game supply. According to those articles, several game authors are increasingly interested in making
entertainment more meaningful, they want to raise awareness about social issues, “allow[ing] people to
realize things about the world in a deeper way than watching the news,” and convey real life messages,
rather than produce games in which the objective is focused on ‘shooting’ on targets and winning points.
However, leaving out discussion about issues related to the controversy or ethics of some contents,
publishers are not taking the risk to support those authors and propose a market line of Serious Games. The
reason is that it is not clear that the consumers are ready to spend their money on those games. Game
authors claim that this demand remains untested and they are convinced that there will be a growing
market of people willing to buy games that inspire them, interested in topics that make them angry or
concerned.
Interesting arguments are brought in by informed readers who have posted their comments on the Polygon
site.



Discussion on the term ‘game’, which was also addressed in previous versions of this deliverable.
The argument is that the term ‘game’ is somehow misleading, that it brings the notion of fun, when
interactive electronic media can offer more than a game. One of the contributors says: “as long as
it’s called the gaming industry we will stumble”. Even the term ‘serious games’ seems to lead to
misunderstandings, as it is not about educational games but about “pushing games to have mature
artistic messages…”.
Arguments related to the costs and its impact on the consumer selection of games.
Complaints about the lack of ‘serious / real world event’ games on the market, as some of the
participants in the discussion commented “outside independent games, we do not see very many
games with actual meaning or purpose behind them.”
7
http://www.polygon.com/
8
http://www.voxmedia.com/
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The other side of the coin is presented in the Ambient Insight Market Analysis (Tyson Greer, 2013), which
claims that the mobile edugame market is growing significantly. This report identifies trends that affect
buying behaviours and have found out that “consumers continue to fuel demand for engaging edugames”.
According to this report, consumers (the general public) are the most interested in game-based mobile
products, from math and language learning for young students to brain trainers for the older ones and that
this segment will provide the largest revenue, compared to the other segments. But the report also claims
that in general, there will be an important rise in revenues for content in North America.
Obviously, although both have their origin in North America, it is not possible to compare those different
viewpoints, because they consider different types of Serious Games and different audiences. The first
articles focus on the commercialization of Serious Games (Indie games), mainly played on ‘traditional’
platforms (PC-Console), while the second report mentions exclusively game-based mobile learning, which is
delivered on mobile phones and tablets and targets a different audience. Although the line between
educating and raising awareness is somehow blurry, there seems to be a much more practical outcome for
the consumers of mobile edugames than for consumers of ‘meaningful’ indie-like games.
Summarising, on the one hand market demand for serious games is not clear and it does not convince
traditional publishers to take risks, offering more diversified products. On the other hand, mobile edugames
are on the rise, in particular for the consumers segment, which pushes content producers to augment their
offer for this target. What seems to be the common point between the two perspectives is the concept of
‘engagement’. Games are considered to engage more than other media, and this factor is crucial in an era of
information overload, as it enhances motivation both for learning and awareness raising purposes.
An additional important aspect to be taken into account is the rapid rate in which product substitution is
taking place, being probably one of the main factors of change in the SG market. Referring to the new
generations of smart mobile devices, Greer argues that the “growth of game-suitable hardware fuels the
need for content” (Tyson Greer, 2013). This may have an impact not only on the market offer and demand,
but also on the value chain, which experienced a rapid evolution, as mentioned in the previous instance of
this deliverable9.
Regarding market segmentation, the Ambient Insight market analysis has divided the demand market (who
is the buyer) in a slightly different way than the segmentation presented in previous versions of this
deliverable regarding the side of the offer (developers/distributors). Here is a comparative table:
GaLA supply market analysis 2013
Education (kids, schools, high education,
universities, informal)
Corporate / Industry (any sector, business oriented)
Healthcare (hospitals, primary care, patients)
Military / Government (security forces, army
related institution, public sector, except hospitals &
education)
9
Ambient Insight demand market analysis 2013
Academic (preK-12 and Higher education buyers,
governmental institutions, and a growing homeschooling population in the US!)
Corporate (any sector, business oriented)
Healthcare (healthcare providers, insurance
companies, pharmaceutical, medical device makers,
& expert patients)
Government (includes military and civilian agencies,
immigration, citizenship, ...)
D4.3 Market and value chain analysis 3, 2013.
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ONG / Games for Good (including Culture, Ecology,
Politics, Humanitarian, …)
Advertising and Media (tv, communication
companies)
Non-Profit (museums and cultural institutions)
Consumers (young children, parents, elderly, but also
medical, nursing & dental students, …)
Table 1: Comparative table of market segmentation
The main difference appears in the last category: Advertising and Media versus Consumers. The
segmentation of the market from the offer perspective considers a cluster of suppliers producing SG for
purposes, such as advertising and promotion, while a very important segment identified in the demand for
game-based solutions is the consumer as individual person. There is a certain logic behind those differences,
from the point of view of the theoretical market analysis. However, in practice, it is important that suppliers
pay great attention to the demand in order not to miss any business opportunity.
Finally, as the survey carried out this year to gain more insight on the demand-side covers principally the
‘corporate’ segment, we highlight here some of the key findings of the Ambient Insight market research
related to this segment in particular, keeping in mind that the focus is on Game-based Mobile Learning
Products rather than on the use of games or gamification in general.
The key points, which are complementary to the outcomes of the survey, are the following:
-
-
It seems that companies are not particularly the best buyers of game-based mobile learning
products, as they have several other learning technologies to choose from and classroom – or
blended approaches – is still much in use.
The economic crisis still affects budgets and it is believed that game development is more expensive
than online learning development.
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3 Insights from 21st Century Business Challenges Survey
3.1 Overview
We received 114 responses to the survey, which is considered as sufficient for the purpose of our study. This
reasonable amount allows us to derive significant trends, although with inner reservations, due to the
demographics of the surveyed organisations.
It must be said that most of the surveyed organisations did not provide their response through the web
questionnaire. In fact, despite all our efforts to publicize the survey among all our contacts and networks, we
could not reach a significant number of answers. Therefore, we decided to adopt another strategy, which
was to make phone interviews to organisations’ representatives and record their answers using the form.
This way, it was possible to directly export the data from the web questionnaire.
We are aware that this strategy can lead to certain bias in the analysis of the information gathered, due to
the geographical reach out of the interviewers from the Aalborg University in Denmark, who volunteered to
make the calls. Consequently, the large majority of the surveyed organisations is from Denmark. However,
although it is a fact that must be kept in mind, our understanding is that it still allows us to observe trends
and derive noteworthy conclusions from the results.
3.2 Challenges
According to the gathered data, plotted on the graph below, organisations seem to face several challenges
and the first in the list are those related to improving the economic situation of the company (in terms of
profitability and cost savings, expansion and growth, developing new markets reorganisation or relocation),
and developing new strategies accordingly. The second area of concern is related to change management
and innovation in their various facets and decision making. Then, with somehow less intensity, companies
are challenged by issues related to human resources, their development and their behaviour within the
organisation. Finally, the issues that are less challenging are related to quality and employee lay-offs.
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Does your organization have any of the following challenges?
New strategy development
Profitability/ cost saving
New market development
Expansion/ growth
Innovation/ creativity
Reorganisation/ relocation
Changing culture/ cross cultural management
Managing change/ resistance to change
Decision-making/ problem solving
Employee development
Communication/ conflict resolution
Customer service
Team-working
Virtual team-working
Environment impact/ sustainability
Quality Issues
Improvement programme(s)/ intervention
Downsizing
Employee turnover/ employee competence
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Figure 3: Challenges faced by organisations
3.3 Use of Games or Gamification
To the question “Does your organisation use Games or Gamification?” 97% of the respondents have
answered “Yes”. This rate seems particularly high, considering the general penetration rate of SG in the
market. Certainly, this is encouraging but it may be due to the bias introduced by the sample of
organisations that have responded to the survey and their geographical location. Therefore, we could state
that in Northern European countries and in this particular case in Denmark, there is a tendency to use of
game-based approaches to solve some of the challenges explained in the previous section.
Furthermore, we were interested in digging a bit more into the characteristics of those who have answered
“No” to this question, although no significant conclusion can be derived, due to the low number of gathered
answers. Therefore, we analysed the data further, as can be seen below.
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Does your organization use Games or Gamification?
No; 3%
Yes; 97%
Figure 4: Rate of organisations using games or gamification
Looking into more details at the three organisations that answered “no”, we obtain the following
information:
1
2
3
Country
Denmark
United Kingdom
Germany
Size
< 50 employees
> 2000 employees
< 200 employees
Industry Sector
Energy & Utilities
Financial Services
Education
From this information, we can observe a disparity of data regarding the demographics. At least two of them
have mentioned the following barriers to the use of game-based solutions in their organisations:





We use external consultants that help us to solve challenges
Cost of using/ developing a Game-based solution
Unwilling to invest in developing Game-based solution
Lack of good quality information about Game-based solutions
Lack of staff who are willing or experienced in using Game-based solutions
All three organisations face the challenge of expansion/ growth, and two of them aspire to new market
development or to foster innovation/ creativity. Logically, none of them has selected any of the advantages
in the use of games presented in question 3.4 Advantages of using Game-based solutions.
Although those organisations are not using these types of application to solve their current challenges, we
can see from their answers to the question “will you use those solutions in the future?” (See 3.6 Future use
of Game-based solutions) that they recognise the potential of game-based applications in helping to address
such challenges or at least they are aware of the current hyped trend for their use since one of them is
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planning to use game-based solutions in the next 6 months and the two others estimate that it may happen
within the next 3 years.
3.4 Advantages of using Game-based solutions
In the graph below (Figure 5) we can observe that there is a clear direction with respect to the perceived
advantages regarding the use of game-based solutions within a company. Flexibility of the organisation and
employees’ adaptability are the most nominated advantages, meaning that the use of games is expected to
have an impact on employees’ behaviour and their reaction to change.
We can observe that there is not a direct relation between the more relevant advantages identified by
respondents and the current challenges faced by organisations as discovered in section 3.2 Challenges. For
example, features like ‘increasing creativity and innovation’ or ‘become profitable’ only occupy a secondary
position in this rating, while profit and growth, as well as reducing costs, were identified previously as the
main challenges.
Actually reducing training costs, increasing sales and entering new markets are concerns of organisations
that game-based solutions are not seen to be able to address.
What are the advantages of using Game-based solutions?
Become a more flexible organisation
Make our employees more adaptable
Become more efficient
Improve our staff competence (team work, self-management, decision-making,
problem solving)
Increase support for creativity and innovation
Become more profitable
Improve our products/ services
Enter new markets
Increase our sales
Reduce our training costs
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Figure 5: Advantages of game-based solutions
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a) Become a more flexible organisation
b) Make our employees more adaptable
c) Become more efficient
d) Improve our staff competence (team work, selfmanagement, decision-making, problem solving)
CEO
Operations
R&D
Sales
Figure 6: Correlation between respondents' job and perceived advantage of game-based solutions
As can be seen in Figure 6, it is interesting to note that according to the position / job of the respondent,
there is a different assessment on the relevance of the enumerated advantages since more importance is
given to one or the other advantage. It is clear that for direction, R&D and sales people, the advantages are
in improving staff competences and becoming more flexible, while for operation people, the main advantage
of using games is that employees become more efficient.
3.5 Reasons for Games or Gamification use
Figure 7 below show that organisations actually use games or gamification to enhance employees’
competences, in particular their behaviour regarding change and innovation. While these answers are in
line with the advantages of the use of games identified previously (see section 3.4 Advantages of using
Game-based solutions), they only address some of the main challenges faced by organisations, although they
focus on challenges that are less recurrent among the companies.
Interestingly, and in line with the perceived advantages of games (see section 3.4), game-based solutions are
not used with the objective of increasing revenues, reducing costs, which are the main concerns of
organisations in general. Also, they are not used as an instrument to connect with the outside world, such as
influencing clients or for the recruitment of potential employees.
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What does your organization use Games or Gamification for?
To improve employees competences
As a means to foster innovation and creativity
As a means to resolve resistance to change
To improve employee motivation/ engagement
To improve team work
To enter new market sectors
To increase our revenues
As a Marketing tool to gain more influence and loyalty from our clients
To reduce costs related to training
Recruit new, more competent, employees
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Figure 7: Reasons for the use of games or gamification
Looking at the relation between respondents’ answers to the question of the challenges and the reasons for
which they actually use games, we observe that only a little bit more than half (55%) of those who have
selected ‘means to foster innovation and creativity’ have also identified this as a challenge. The percentage
is somehow higher (65%) in the case of ‘resistance to change’. Those data show that companies are willing to
use game-based applications to address some of the issues they see as main challenges but not to all of
them. In this particular case, data confirm that this type of applications is certainly used to tackle resistance
to change issues.
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Advantages vs actual use
Reduce our training costs
80%
Become a more flexible organisation
70%
Increase our sales
60%
50%
40%
30%
Become more efficient
Enter new markets
20%
10%
0%
Improve employee motivation/
engagement
Improve team work
Increase support for creativity and
innovation
Make our employees more adaptable /
less resistant to change
Improve our staff competence
advantages
Actual use
Figure 8: Radar of advantages vs actual use of games
The radar chart above shows the accuracy between the expectations of use and the perceived advantages of
the use of games in the organisations compared to their actual use. We can observe that it coincides
particularly with improving employees’ adaptability and resistance to change and team work.
However, the questions related to the actual use of games do not allow understanding if organisations are
actually using games to address the perceived advantages of ‘becoming a more flexible organisation’ and
‘becoming more efficient’.
3.6 Future use of Game-based solutions
To the question “will you use those solutions (game-based) in the future?” respondents were asked to select
among 4 options: No, within the next 6 months, next year or within the next 3 years. The results (see Figure
9) show that there are intentions to use games or gamification in the future, although not immediately.
Almost half of the respondents plan to use it in the next year and the other half within 3 years. We may
interpret that there is more uncertainty in this answer, and that those organisations may need more time to
check the real feasibility of using the studied type of application to resolve some of the challenges they are
currently facing.
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Will you use those solutions in the future?
No
6%
Next 6 months
2%
Next 3 years
42%
Next year
50%
Figure 9: Plans to use game-based solutions in the future
In the next section about barriers to the use of games (section 3.5), we identify what could be the main
reasons why the organisations that are not planning to use games in the near future.
3.7 Barriers to the use of Games or Gamification
Lack of awareness and of information are the main reasons given by the respondents when asked why they
would not use games or gamification. The practicality of use, development and deployment costs and
difficulty to estimate the ROI are the next reasons, as can be seen on Figure 10. What is clear is that
technological aspects are not seen as an obstacle to the introduction of game-based solutions in the
companies.
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Indicate the 3 most important reasons why your organization does not
use Games or Gamification
Unconvinced of the business case
Lack of information about Game-based solutions’ practical application
It is not easy, or practical, in our business to develop/use Game-based solutions
We use external consultants that help us to solve challenges
Lack of awareness of the benefits of Game-based solutions
Difficult to estimate the Return On Investment
Cost of using/ developing a Game-based solution
Lack of knowledge (self, company) about Game-based solutions
Unwilling to invest in developing Game-based solution
Lack of good quality information about Game-based solutions
Not enough time to use Game-based solutions in our company
Lack of staff who are willing or experienced in using Game-based solutions
Staff and employee perception that playing games is easy but not valuable
Low Familiarity with using technology for Gamification
Low Familiarity with using technology for Virtual Worlds
Not sure of the reliability of the technology
Other
Lack of IT/ technical facilities and support for using Game-based solutions
Low Familiarity with using technology for 3D Environments
Worries about the integration of Game-based solution in to existing…
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
Figure 10: Reasons for not using games or gamification
The graph below shows that the organisations that are not planning to use game-based solution before 2-3
years encounter obstacles, which are aligned with the results shown above in Figure 10 as reasons for not
using games or gamification. In relation to the period of time expected before starting using game-based
solutions indicated by organisations, we understand that those who are willing to use them in the nearest
future are in a better position to easily overcome such barriers.
Barriers encontered by organizations planning to use game-based solutions within 3 years
a) Unconvinced of the business case
b) Lack of information about Game-based solutions’ practical application
c) It is not easy, or practical, in our business to develop/use Game-based solutions
d) We use external consultants that help us to solve challenges
e) Lack of awareness of the benefits of Game-based solutions
f) Cost of using/ developing a Game-based solution
g) Difficult to estimate the Return On Investment
Figure 11: Barriers to the use of games when planning their use within 3 years
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1- Lack of information about
Game-based solutions’ practical
application
2- It is not easy, or practical, in our
business to develop/use Gamebased solutions
4- We use external consultants
that help us to solve challenges
CEO
Operations
R&D
3- Difficult to estimate the Return
On Investment
Sales
Figure 12: Radar graph of barriers in relation to respondent's job
Another interesting analysis of these data is to check whether the stated barriers differed considering the
respondent position. We have taken the 4 most important reasons and plotted them in relation to the
mostly represented respondents’ jobs (CEO, Operations, R&D, and Sales). We can observe in Figure 12 that
effectively, except for the first reason ‘unconvinced of the business case’, which had a similar value for all
roles, the reasons depend on the position. Operations people find it ‘not easy to use games in their
business’ and they tend to ‘rely on external consultants’ to address challenges, while R&D people and CEOs
tend to focus on the ‘lack of information about the practical application of games’.
3.8 Demographics
Demographic questions have been included in our survey help determine if factors may influence
respondent’s answers.
As can be seen on the map below, in which we use a colour code to highlight the volume of answers
collected per country, most of the respondents are from Denmark (in red), with sporadic answers from
Sweden, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Greece, UK and US. It may very well be that
answers from other countries would have differed, especially countries that are culturally different from
Denmark, such as Mediterranean countries, or beyond Europe, but we are not in a position to assess this
aspect, which may be the subject of further studies. As mentioned previously, all conclusions must take into
account the context of the study.
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Figure 13: Geographical distribution of the organisations participating in the survey
3.8.1 Functional Area
Respondents to the survey selected various options to define the functional area / departments in which
they are working. The following graph gives an overview of the areas in which respondents are involved. We
can observe that the main areas are related to logistics and supply chain management, production, R&D
and Engineering, all of them related to production and delivery. Those areas are relevant, especially in the
manufacturing sector, in the answers collected through this survey, which is the most represented sector, as
we can see in section 3.8.1. The gathered data confirm that there is a demand for game-based solutions to
overcome some of the challenges detected in the survey.
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Functional Area
Logistics/SCM
Production
R&D
Engineering
Marketing
Procurement
Design
Sales
Administration
HR/Training
Warehouse
Transport
Finance/ accounting
Quality controlling
ITC
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Figure 14: Respondents' functional areas
3.8.2 Industry Sector
The industry sector most represented in this survey is clearly the manufacturing sector, followed by IT and
telecom, Services, Energy and Utilities and Education.
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Industry Sector
Media
Transport/Logistics
Public
Administration/Government
Aerospace
Healthcare
Financial Services
Other
Defence/Military
Education
Manufacturing
Energy & Utilities
Services
IT/ Telecoms
Figure 15: Clustering of respondents per industry sector
We have analysed the data to see if there were different answers depending on the sector and we
discovered that effectively, as shown in Figure 16 below,



for the IT/Telecom the most important barrier seem to be the difficulty to estimate the RoI,
while for the Services sector, it is not easy to develop/use games and
for the Education sector it is the lack of information about games application.
In our understanding, the last observation regarding the Education Sector is somehow surprising, because
according to the knowledge acquired in GaLA, the Educational sector should be the one which counts with
more information available. It may be that the number of respondents from this sector to our survey is too
low to be in an informed position to draw such a conclusion, and further investigation would be needed to
understand this aspect.
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-Difficult to estimate the
Return On Investment
-Lack of awareness of the
benefits of Game-based
solutions
-Unconvinced of the
business case
-We use external
consultants that help us to
solve challenges
-Lack of information about
Game-based solutions’
practical application
Education
-It is not easy, or practical, in
our business to develop/use
Game-based solutions
IT/Telecom
Services
Figure 16: Relation between sectors and identified barriers
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3.8.3 Number of Employees
Organization number of employees
< 50
11%
< 200
21%
> 2000
46%
> 201
22%
Figure 17: Number of employees
It is not possible to identify if employees from a same organisation have answered to the questionnaire, but
we need to assume that it could be the case, especially in the case of large organisations. There is a majority
of large enterprises (and thus more chances that employees from a same company have answered the
questionnaire). However, we can consider that the answers we have received generally reflect the views of
large organisations, with more than 200 employees. In Figure 18 below, we can see how answers vary
depending on the size of the company regarding barriers to the use of games in the organisation. Logically,
smaller companies do not rely on the use of external consultants, while larger companies do. It seems that
medium size companies are not as concerned about the easiness or practicality of using game-based
solutions in their business as smaller or larger organisations are.
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-Difficult to estimate the Return
On Investment
-Lack of awareness of the
benefits of Game-based
solutions
-Unconvinced of the business
case
-Lack of information about
Game-based solutions’ practical
application
-We use external consultants
that help us to solve challenges
< 200
< 50
-It is not easy, or practical, in our
business to develop/use Gamebased solutions
> 2000
> 201
Figure 18: Relation between organisation size and identified barriers
3.8.4 Interviewee’s position / role
In average, interviewees had 9.5 years in their current job, being 1 the minimum and 25 the maximum. The
whole distribution of position or role is presented in Figure 19 below:
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Interviewees position / role in the organization
Others; 7%
Direction; 13%
Administration; 6%
Operations; 27%
Sales; 12%
R&D; 29%
Figure 19: Interviewees' jobs
As a general observation, most of the interviewees are involved in companies’ Operation and R&D activities,
followed by Direction and Sales. We have seen in section 3.7 how people in different positions rate barriers
to the use of games in the organisation in different ways.
In the ‘others’ category, we can find the following roles, with only one representative per role:








Consultant
Gamification & Game psychology specialist
HR
IT
Logistics
Maintenance
PhD student
Production
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4 Conclusive Remarks
4.1 Summary of findings
4.1.1 Desktop research on market demand
Two sources of information have been identified and present different views on market demand, according
to the focus on specific segments of the demand. On the one hand, publishers are not ready to
commercialize ‘meaningful’ games as they are not convince that there is enough market demand for this
type of ‘serious games’. On the other hand, a recent market analysis from Ambient Insights announces that
there is a significant rise in the demand of mobile game-based learning products, especially by the
‘consumer’ segment (i.e. pre-school children, parents, and the elderly).
Developers and distributors must pay attention to the evolution of technology and the rapid rate in which
product substitution is taking place and has an impact on the need and supply of content adapted to this
technology (i.e. smart mobile devices).
Finally, corporate demand for mobile edu-games, contrarily to consumer demand, is not yet on the rise, due
to the offer of alternative learning technologies or modalities, the apprehension to adopt mobile devices
that have the connotation of fun and the still impacting economic crisis which imposes tight budgets to
corporations.
4.1.2 Demand side survey
As previously mentioned, the sample, although relevant in size, is limited in sectorial and geographical
scope. Therefore the data must be interpreted keeping in mind that the organisations that have answered to
the questions are principally from Denmark, they are mostly large companies and the majority operate in
the manufacturing sector, where logistics and production are key functional areas. This being said, there are
a variety of answers, depending on the size of the company and the position of the respondent. This is not
particularly visible in the questions related to challenges and advantages/reasons for the use of games, but
can be observed regarding the barriers to the use of game-based solutions. The observations show that
there are trends of the demand that may be taken into account when assessing the impact of Serious Games
in the market.
Trends



The main challenges faced by organisations are:
o New strategy and market development
o Profitability, cost saving, expansion and growth
o Innovation and change management and development of human resources in this sense
97% of respondents already use game-based solutions and have plans to keep using them in the
period fork of next 1 and 3 years.
The main advantages of using game-based solutions are improvements in
o Flexibility of the organisation
o Employees’ adaptability
o Efficiency and employees’ competences
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







D4.4 MARKET AND VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS 4
The main reasons for the use of game-based solutions are
o To improve employees’ competences
o As a means to foster innovation and creativity and combat resistance to change
o To improve motivation, engagement and team work
It is interesting to note that in general, the surveyed organisations tend to see gaming and
gamification as a means to address their challenges.
Only 6% of the interviewed organisations do not plan to use games in the near future (within 3
years). However, the 3% of organisations which are not yet using games plan to use them in the near
future.
The main barriers to the use of games or gamification identified are
o Lack of facts to be convinced of the business case for the application of game-based
solutions to address their specific challenges
o Lack of information about game practical application
o Not easy or practical to use it in the business
o Rely on external consultants to help addressing the challenges
Interestingly, the following aspects are not seen as barriers
o Lack of technical facilities and support
o Low familiarity with 3D environments
o Integration of games with existing processes / systems
According to their position in the organisation, respondents find different barriers to the use of
games. Operations people find it ‘not easy to use games in their business’ and they tend to ‘rely on
external consultants to address challenges’, while R&D people and CEOs tend to identify barriers
related to the ‘lack of information about the practical application of games’.
According to their sector of operation, the order of barriers also varies
o For the IT/Telecom it seem to be the difficulty to estimate the RoI
o For the Services sector, it is not easy to develop/use games
According to the size of the company, there are also subtle differences in the identification of the
main barriers
o While large companies tend to rely on the use of external consultants, smaller companies do
not
o Small and Large organisations worry about the ‘easiness or practicality of using game-based
solutions in their business’, while it seems to be less of a problem for medium size
companies
Overall, we observe that the surveyed organisations are familiar with games and gamification. They tend to
use game-based solutions to address their main challenges, directly or indirectly. In particular, they tend to
use games to improve employees’ behaviours (towards innovation, creativity and team building), in addition
to other competences. In general, the most important reasons why organisations are reluctant to use games
or gamification are firstly the lack of awareness, lack of information and lack of conviction that the business
cases for the application of game-based solutions will solve their specific challenges, and secondarily the
practicality of use, costs and difficulty to estimate the Return on Investment. The data show that technical
aspects do not represent the main obstacles. Finally, there are some variations in importance given to the
barriers depending on the organisations’ industry sector, size and to the position/role of the respondents
within their company.
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Taking into account the results obtained in this analysis, we would recommend refining this type of study in
the future, extending the survey to:




consider a wider geographical scope (in particular, different cultures with different approaches to
gaming)
consider a wider sectorial scope (more healthcare, government, education segments)
extend the target audience to the consumers sector (not only organisations)
include more questions to gather information about the type of games used, the technological
support, the providers, the budget, etc.
4.1.3 Research outcomes Y4
Here are tentative answers to the main questions posed in the introduction of this iteration of the market
analysis:
Questions
Proposed Answers
Type of relationship with providers
This question was not addressed in the survey. However
we have observed that large companies tend to rely on
external consultants to find solutions to their challenges,
including game-based solutions. Meanwhile small
companies rely more on their internal resources when
using these types of solutions.
General satisfaction with Serious Games
implementation
From the survey results, it seems that organisations are
satisfied with the use of Serious Games. At least 97% are
using them to address major challenges and most plan
to use game-based solutions within the next 3 years.
However, although the sample of organisations
answering to the survey contemplates large (and very
large international organisations), it may not be
representative of the whole EU industrial tissue or other
segments of the market. Therefore future research may
extend the geographical and sectorial scope and attempt
to gather answers from wider sample of organisations.
Future plans related to SG acquisition
From the outcomes of the survey, we may derive that
94% of the organisations are prone to use game-based
solutions in the near future, most probably because
most of them are already familiar with games and are
using them in a way or another. The details about how
much, to whom and what kind of games are not yet
known and may be the subject of future research.
Views on the SG market
Organisations’ views on the game market may be
understood from their answers to the question related
to the advantage of the use of game-based solutions, as
well as the actual use. Overall, respondents selected 388
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options referring to the advantages and 344 to the
actual use, in average 3,5 per organisation, which seems
quite a positive result, although it has to be considered
within the framework of the survey’s geographical and
sectorial limitations. As for the previous research
question, there may be a need to gather more details in
the future to fully understand the demand views of the
game and gamification offer.
Table 2: Initial research questions and current findings
4.2 Overall observations considering the 4 years evolution of the market and
value chain analysis
During four years, the market and value chain analysis activity within GaLA has allowed us to observe and
discover various facets of the emerging and evolving market of Serious Games. The overall idea was to study
the actual and future market and the actors in the value chain. Previous work allowed us to draw a picture
of the companies that were producing and selling Serious Game based on data gathered from 340
companies, as well as primary sources of information. Our initial objective was to provide an overview and
tentative analysis of the market from the offer side (developers / distributors) of Serious Games (SG). During
the last year of the project, we focused on the demand side (buyers / customers).
The following considerations are an attempt to summarize the evolution of the market research:




A supply market breakdown was established considering six market sectors: 1) Education, 2)
Corporate, 3) Healthcare, 4) Military / Government or Public Sector, 5) NGOs / Games for Good and
6) Advertising / Media. The analysis of the demand side of the market uncovered a new segment:
the consumer segment, which is mainly interested in mobile-based edu-games. Additionally, there
seems to be demand for more ‘Games for Good’, which does not yet fully convinced publishers, as
commercial viability is unclear.
Our findings regarding the supply-side showed that the most addressed sector was Education with
more than half of the companies in our study doing business in this sector. A relevant number of
companies mainly involved in the production of Serious Games (in particular games for training and
rehabilitation) were targeted to the healthcare sector in particular. We suggested that an
interpretation was that companies developing SG as main activity and operating within the
Healthcare sector tended to specialise in the sector, as they required specific skills and knowledge
for the development of those games as well as a particular access to market and distribution
channels.
The current analysis of the demand side shows that surveyed organisations (mainly from the
corporate/ manufacturing sector) are familiar with games and gamification. They tend to use gamebased solutions to address their main challenges, directly or indirectly. In particular, they tend to use
games to improve employees’ behaviours (towards innovation, creativity and team building), in
addition to other competences.
The value chain analysis presented in the previous work considered different groups from the supply
side. However the research showed that this chain was in constant evolution, and that groups
tended to merge. In general it seemed that design, development and distribution roles merged and
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
D4.4 MARKET AND VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS 4
were managed by one actor. We found that there was a tendency for companies operating in
Education and Healthcare sectors to develop and generally distribute their own games. This trend
was less visible in the other sectors where ready-made games were not easily accessible for any
customer to buy. This seems to coincide with the rise of mobile edu-games which are directly
commercialised by developers to the consumer segment as mobile devices become more
performing and provide sufficient support for good gaming experiences (e.g. accelerometers, 8 MP
cameras, GPS, NFC, fast processors).
Previous work indicated that the demand side was not fully developed, at least not in all sectors.
This study shows that at least in the corporate sector (including manufacturing, IT/ telecoms,
services, energy/ utilities industries) the demand for game-based solution is significant and well in
line with the challenges organisations face, although some reservation is kept due to the
geographical circumstances of the survey.
In summary, nurtured by the outputs of other GaLA project activities, such as business modelling (T4.4),
engagement of industry and stakeholders (T4.5) or the community of corporate users (T7.4), we have
attempted to follow the evolution of the Serious Games market and value chain, a market still in its early
stages and which is particularly fragmented, due to the diversity of game-based solutions that address
different challenges and target audiences. The general picture obtained from the market and value chain
analysis can be used as an entry point to the body of knowledge created during the GALA project and is one
of the contributions towards reducing the fragmentation of the information related to SGs, their applications
and markets.
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5 Acknowledgements
We would like to sincerely thank the graduate students of Aalborg University’s MBA program, who kindly
volunteered to perform the interviews and record the answers of the major part of respondents to the
survey. We are also grateful to Atos technical team for the setting up of the survey on the web, data
gathering and processing.
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6 Bibliography
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Greer, T. (2011). The US Serious Games Market: Segment Size and Opportunity (presentation).
Ambient Insight: plenary session at the Serious Play Conference.
Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura. (2013, June 4). Injecting the Real World Into Games. The New Yor
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Sarkar, S. (2013, June 4). Serious games sector growing, but commercial demand remains untested.
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Sawyer, B., & P., S. (2008, February 19). Serious Games Taxonomy (presentation). Retrieved
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Videogames, Serious Games and Gamification. Seville: JRC Scientific and Policy Reports,
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Takahashi, D. (2012). Games get serious in education and corporate training (interview to Sue
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Gamesbeat:
http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/24/games-get-serious-in-education-andcorporate-training-interview/#H6xzFhIRXdBoDagz.99
Tyson Greer. (2013). 2013-2018 North America Mobile Edugame Market. Ambient Insight.
6.1 GaLA documents
Game and Learning Alliance, Description of Work, 2010.
D4.1 Market and value chain analysis 1, 2011.
D4.2 Market and value chain analysis 2, 2012.
D4.3 Market and value chain analysis 3, 2013.
D4.19 Stakeholders and Community Building Report, 2012.
D4.20 Stakeholders and Community Building Report, 2013.
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6.2 Other Sources of Information (updated Y4)
Title
12 webs in Spanish for playing and learning
Asian Federation of Serious Games
Asociación de empresas del sector del
videojuego en Euskadi
Balancing Reality, Meaning and Play: design
philosophy for developing games with a
serious purpose or meaningful purpose
Catalog of Serious Games (Mark Prensky)
Chris deLeon blog
Classic games
Collaborative classification system suited to
videogames
CPC-power (in 38rench, fiches on video
games)
Developer & distributor of online games (not
serious), Germany
Educational Games (free and shareware)
Free Games online
Free World Group Games
Gamasutra
Games 2Download
Games Database
Gamesbeat
Gamespot
Guide: recommends games for children &
family
Hongkong Digital Game-based learning
Association
Indie Games
Jeux Serioux
Le jeu serieux en Belgique Francophone
Legacy games
List of Serious Games to foster social change
MIT paper on Serious Games
Moby Games (Interesting information about
companies histories)
Nice TED video on the impact of games!
Pan European Game Information
Plateforme d’édition générique de Serious
Games
Polygon
Punch Arcade
School Time Games
Scientific research laboratory dedicated to
videogames
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URL
http://www.elesapiens.com/12-webs-in-spanish-for-playing-andlearning/
http://afsg.sgasg.org/
http://www.basquegame.org
http://triadicgamedesign.com
www.socialimpactgames.com
http://www.hobbygamedev.com
www.classicdosgames.com
http://www.gameclassification.com
www.cpc-power.com
www.innogames.com
www.freedownloadcenter.com/games/educational_games
http://armorgames.com/
www.freeworldgroup.com
http://www.gamasutra.com/news/serious/
www.games2download.com
http://gamedbase.com
http://venturebeat.com/category/games/
www.gamespot.com
www.souris-grise.fr
http://www.digitalgameslearning.org/
http://indiegames.com
www.jeux-serieux.fr
http://www.seriousgame.be/
www.ersim.com
http://purposefulgames.info
http://education.mit.edu/papers/MovingLearningGamesForward
_EdArcade.pdf
www.mobygames.com
http://youthvoices.net/play
http://www.pegionline.eu
https://sites.google.com/site/genericsg2012/home
http://www.polygon.com/
www.puncharchade.com
www.schooltimegames.com
http://www.ludoscience.com
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Serious Games Asia
Serious Game Directory of the Serious Games
Association
Serious Games Blog
Serious games challenge award (2012)
Serious Games & Social Connect Conference
South Korea
Serious Games portal in Germany
Webdesign, very close to Serious Games
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http://seriousgamesasia.com/
http://www.seriousgamesdirectory.com/proj/education/
www.seriousgameblog.com
http://sgschallenge.com
http://www.seriousgamesconference.org/
http://www.seriousgames.de
www.upian.com
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7 Annexes
7.1 Survey questions
GALA DEMAND SIDE SURVEY QUESTIONS
1-Does your organisation have any of the following challenges (select all that apply):
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Expansion/growth
Downsizing
Profitability/ cost saving
Reorganisation/ relocation
New market development
New strategy development
Innovation, creativity
Quality Issues
Customer service
Environment impact/ sustainability
Managing change, resistance to change
Improvement programme(s)/ intervention
Changing culture, cross cultural management
Employee turnover, employee competence
Employee development
Team-working
Virtual team-working
Decision-making/ problem solving
Communication/ conflict resolution
2- Organisations can use Game-based solutions for internal purposes, to provide staff training or for
improving internal processes; or for external purposes targeting their clients.
Does your organisation use Games or Gamification?
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Yes/No
If your answer is Yes:
2a- What are the advantages of using Game-based solutions?
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Improve our products/ services
Enter new markets
Become more efficient
Increase our sales
Become more profitable
Become a more flexible organisation
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Increase support for creativity and innovation
Improve our staff competence (team work, self-management, decision-making, problem solving)
Reduce our training costs
Make our employees more adaptable
3- What does your organisation use Games or Gamification for?
Please select as many answers as you consider applicable:
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As a Marketing tool to gain more influence and loyalty from our clients
As a means to resolve resistance to change
As a means to foster innovation and creativity
To increase our revenues
To enter new market sectors
To reduce costs related to training
To improve employees competences
To improve employee motivation/ engagement
To improve team work
Recruit new, more competent, employees
4- Will you use those solutions in the future?
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If yes: in the next 6 months
Next year
Next 3 years
5- Indicate the 3 most important reasons why your organisation does not use Games or Gamification?
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We use external consultants that help us to solve challenges
Lack of information about Game-based solutions’ practical application
Lack of awareness of the benefits of Game-based solutions
Unconvinced of the business case
Difficult to estimate the Return On Investment
Cost of using/ developing a Game-based solution
Unwilling to invest in developing Game-based solution
It is not easy, or practical, in our business to develop/use Game-based solutions
Lack of knowledge (self, company) about Game-based solutions
Low Familiarity with using technology for Gamification
Low Familiarity with using technology for Virtual Worlds
Low Familiarity with using technology for 3D Environments
Not sure of the reliability of the technology
Lack of good quality information about Game-based solutions
Worries about the integration of Game-based solution in to existing processes/ systems
Lack of staff who are willing or experienced in using Game-based solutions
Staff and employee perception that playing games is easy but not valuable
Lack of IT/ technical facilities and support for using Game-based solutions
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Not enough time to use Game-based solutions in our company
Other_____________
Demographics
Please provide us with more information about yourself:
Year of MBA graduation____
Present job/position __________________
Number of years in current job_____
Organisation Number of employees___
Functional area:
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Finance/ accounting
Quality controlling
R&D
Design
Engineering
Production
Sales
Marketing
Procurement
Logistics/SCM
Warehouse
Transport
HR/Training
Administration
ITC
Other
Industry sector:
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Education
Healthcare
Aerospace
Defence/Military
Manufacturing
Retail
Services
Public Administration/Government
Transport/Logistics
Financial Services
IT/ Telecoms
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Media
Energy & Utilities
Culture/Heritage
Other________
Country:
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