Edutainment Case Study

What in the World Happened to Carmen Sandiego? The Edutainment Era: Debunking Myths and Sharing Lessons Learned Carly Shuler The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop Fall 2012 1 © The Joan Ganz Cooney Center 2012. All rights reserved. The mission of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop is to harness digital media teChnologies to advanCe Children’s learning. The Center supports aCtion researCh, enCourages partnerships to ConneCt Child development experts and educators with interactive media and teChnology leaders, and mobilizes publiC and private investment in promising and proven new media teChnologies for Children. For more information, visit www.joanganzCooneyCenter.org. The Joan Ganz Cooney Center has a deep Commitment toward dissemination of useful and timely researCh. Working Closely with our Cooney Fellows, national advisors, media sCholars, and praCtitioners, the Center publishes industry, poliCy, and researCh briefs examining key issues in the field of digital media and learning. No part of this publiCation may be reproduCed or transmitted in any form or by any means, eleCtroniC or meChaniCal, inCluding photoCopy, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. For permission to reproduCe exCerpts from this report, please ContaCt: Attn: PubliCations Department, The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop One Lincoln Plaza New York, NY 10023 p: 212 595 3456 f: 212 875 7308 [email protected] Suggested Citation: Shuler, C. (2012). Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? The Edutainment Era: Debunking Myths and Sharing Lessons Learned. New York: The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. 2 Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 4 The Rise .......................................................................................................................................................... 6 The Consolidation ...................................................................................................................................... 9 The Fall ........................................................................................................................................................ 11 Conclusion: Debunking Myths ........................................................................................................... 15 References .................................................................................................................................................. 17 Appendix A: Key Companies from the Edutainment Era ....................................................... 19 3 Introduction The Games and Learning Publishing Council is a research and policy linkage initiative supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation whose goal is to understand the market dynamiCs and areas of innovation that are ready for scaling within the game-based learning field. As part of the CounCil’s work, a review of both Current and past efforts in the games and learning area has been undertaken to help creators, entrepreneurs, practitioners, and poliCymakers understand important opportunities and challenges to integrating digital games into the current context of education policy reform and practice. This brief takes a close look at the lessons learned from the informal learning “Edutainment” era. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, some of the best-selling video games inCluded familiar titles suCh as Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? and The Oregon Trail—products that not only set the standard for games as eduCational tools but also launched an entire industry of Consumer products intended to both educate and entertain. Through the success of these titles and others, the edutainment industry blossomed, and the design, development and distribution of Children’s games beCame a growing industry that held promise both in terms of its eduCational potential and market opportunities. However, in the late 1990s, a number of faCtors led to an industry downturn. Within about five years, edutainment went from a burgeoning market to somewhat of a dirty word within industry circles—a downward spiral that has had longstanding repercussions that still resonate strongly in the current market. Today, publishers today tend to stay away from the word “eduCational” in the Consumer video game spaCe. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find a recent mainstream suCCess story of a big budget video game in the Consumer spaCe that was designed, developed, and marketed as eduCational. There are many popular games that have substantial educational value—Little Big Planet, The Sims, and Minecraft to name a few. However, none of these games have been intentionally designed, developed and marketed as educational. 4 In casual conversations, developers and others in the Consumer video games industry often attribute the edutainment industry downfall to either laCk of market demand or difficulty in creating great products that both educate and entertain. Our researCh, whiCh examined aCademiC analyses, as well as Contemporary financial and press reports and featured interviews with leading figures in the “edutainment era,” has found a more nuanCed depiCtion of what oCCurred. In reality, it was neither lack of demand nor a laCk of quality produCts that tipped the video game edutainment market into a downward spiral; rather, it was massive Consolidation Combined with other key contextual forces such as the rise of mass-market retailers and aCCompanying downward-pricing pressures that led to the industry’s demise. This brief re-considers the “edutainment era” of children’s educational software and reflects on how lessons from past efforts Can inform Current efforts to mobilize games for learning. FoCusing on the Consumer market, the report attempts to debunk some of the misConCeptions around what happened to edutainment in the ‘90s, while simultaneously sharing valuable lessons learned from one of the most important periods in the history of games and learning. 5 The Rise In the early 1980s, the availability and growing popularity of personal Computers allowed for the birth of the Consumer software industry. EduCators and teChnologists saw an opportunity to use this new medium to help children learn, and a niche industry of educational software was born. Creative minds drawn to the new medium explored a variety of approaChes to learning games. A newly minted teacher, who joined forces with educational researchers at the University of Minnesota, and shortly thereafter The Minnesota EduCational Computing Consortium (MECC), began to CommerCialize produCts suCh as The Oregon Trail and Number Munchers. Two brothers formed the idea to create a Computer game that would get kids interested in geography, work that led to Broderbund launching the renowned Carmen Sandiego series in 1985. With original funding from a National SCienCe Foundation grant, three educators and an Atari game designer founded The Learning Company, best known originally for the Reader Rabbit series. By the Close of the deCade, the edutainment market was booming. 6 These pioneers and others were influenCed by emerging best praCtiCes in teaching and learning of the time period. These focused on active participation, open-ended learning, and constructivist learning principles (Ito, 2009). Akin to the early days of eduCational television, multidisCiplinary teams at the interseCtion of eduCation, research, and design led many of the initiatives. Early practitioners were inventing new forms, and even drill-and-praCtiCe games were infused with a new measure of creative energy and humor (Klopfer et al, 2009). For both Creators and Consumers of these early products, each new title represented a novel step into unknown territory (Klopfer et al, 2009). Math Blaster took a standard drill-and-practice instructional meChanism, and embedded it within a shooter game arChetype (Ito, 2009). Rocky’s Boots was one of the first educational software produCts for personal Computers to suCCessfully use an interaCtive graphiCal simulation as a learning environment. Where in the World Is Carmen 7 Sandiego? established a unique formula involving a series of missions in which the user tracks Ms. Sandiego through a variety of geographiCal destinations, a theme that was cultivated in the produCt line for years to Come. The market for Children’s software designed to both educate and entertain was so ripe that it warranted its own name, and the term “edutainment” was born. By the late ‘80s, edutainment was a robust industry in which numerous publishers were thriving. 8 The Consolidation The early 1990s saw the emergenCe of a mass-market for Consumer multimedia software. Multimedia software sales grew by 26% per year during the first few years of the decade (“The Learning Company,” 2004). Edutainment Companies were a significant part of this growth. Broderbund beCame a publiC Company in fall of 1991, and within a year revenues had inCreased by 25% to over $75 million (“Broderbund’s Net,” 1992). Requiring more Capital for growth, the state of Minnesota spun off MECC as a private corporation in 1991, and an IPO followed in MarCh 1994 (“The Learning Company,” 2004). Over the same time period, important players suCh as Knowledge Adventure and Riverdeep joined the ranks of the original pioneers. By the mid 1990s

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