We want to help people develop themselves in more effective, efficient and engaging ways, with serious games.
In our vision, the essence of serious games is creating experiences in which players are challenged to solve real world problems. In the game they can experiment, enabling them to build knowledge and skills and making them aware of their behaviour in that situation. This makes them better able to take on these challenges in reality.
Learning by doing, the ancient method of the future
As we see it, we are currently in a spurt of the evolution of learning. The most effective way to learn something, and to develop oneself, is by doing it. This has been common knowledge since ancient times. Today, information technology and game technology are rapidly making it possible to apply this effective method in an efficient way.
Information technology makes it possible to learn at your own tempo, at the time and place of your choice. Game technology makes it possible to increase the quality of this learning experience enormously, as players are continually challenged at their own level, because the challenge grows with their knowledge and skills. This enables large groups of people to experience an intensive and highly personal learning experience.
Here lie solutions for many issues which currently confront us. We see three important areas of application for serious games: training and education, health care and communication.
Training and education
Businesses and schools are confronted with a new generation that has grown up with media and games. How do you keep them involved? How do you challenge them? Increasing global competition necessitates companies having to constantly innovate: change management has become a core competence. How do you keep your employees up to date? And just how do you get the right people on board in the rapidly tightening job market?
Additionally, we expect different, hard to train competencies from our employees today, like trust, integrity and intercultural co-operation. Here too, serious games come to the rescue.
Health care
In health care, the challenges are even greater. Patients are expected to play an increasingly active role in the prevention and treatment of their illnesses. Self-management and lifestyle change are key concepts here, because the more independent patients are, the greater the saving for health care.
Games are already being used succesfully for therapeutic purposes, as a painkiller and to learn how to cope with diseases. Currently, for example, we are working on games that help learning to live with ADHD, diabetes and psychosis.
Communication
The challenges in communication lie mainly on the content side. In a crowded marketplace, brands have increasing difficulty differentiating themselves. This makes it essential to involve consumers in an experience that is meaningful to them. Here too, a well-designed experience is front and central, enticing the players to dive into it.
Communication games are especially promising on two fronts. Firstly, for job market communication together with recruitment and selection. Here, a game can paint a complete picture of a company, job or industry, while simultaneously making an assessment of the players' suitability. Secondly, for more complex communication issues, where it's important to have the players experience dilemmas.
Standardization vs. customization
To offer cost-effective solutions to these challenges, a certain degree of standardization is necessary. In recent years Ranj has spent a great deal of effort here, developing powerful engines, development tools and game formats. This allows us to provide customized services at competitive prices and with an acceptable time to market.
