This is a very interesting presentation on gaming startups from a European perspective. Jussi focuses on a lot of the funding strategies I’ve been learning about during the past 18 months with Nooja. The comments about the public funding process really hit home and it was interesting to see how close they are to our experience in France with the CNC production advances and government tax credits. Jussi also discusses lean startups and the importance of interacting with your consumer very early. We’re thinking about getting the big picture right for our September launch but we realize they’re will be a lot of tweaking to do. Our question always has to be is it “good enough”?
This isn’t a new video but it’s a great reflection on the expectation of kids for both entertainment and education. Marc Prensky, the inventor of the term digital natives, said it no differently : “Our students are no longer “little versions of us” as they may have been in the past. In fact, they are so different from us that we can no longer use our 20th century knowledge or our training as a guide to what is best for them educationally”.
There’s been a lot of talk in both the US and Europe about e-learning. The US now seems to be moving forward with lots of hardware investment but one of the issues that doesn’t seem to be particularly well thought out is the software side, particularly for the younger kids learning basic writing, reading and math skills. Videogame producers and educational publishers still haven’t made much investment in this area. Family entertainment specialists like Viacom or Disney have some initiatives which focus on preschoolers but most of the product out there isn’t rigorous enough to truly support an integrated e-learning process. There’s a strong opportunity in this area that some companies like Dreambox are looking to seize.