I’ve been following the fortunes of games agency Preloaded for several years now, and worked with them on a number of projects. During that time, they’ve grown considerably and had some impressive successes. I wondered: what do they think is behind that success, and what advice might they have for others who want to create educational games? I interviewed their managing director, Paul Canty, to find out his thoughts on this and their new venture showcasing games with purpose.
Martha: tell me a bit about how you started out, and how that’s grown to where you are now.
Paul: We set up Preloaded over 13 years ago now, with a remit to do work of creative quality that we felt was lacking in larger digital agencies. Pretty much as soon as we were established, the dot com crash happened which actually worked out really well for us. We picked up work that larger agencies could no longer do (we did the original Coca Cola UK site for example) and started working with broadcasters like the BBC who were really innovating digitally back in those early days.
Games were a constant output of our work, although we did a range of other things too, from corporate websites for the likes of the Arts Council through to innovative content based apps like the first Net A Porter app.
About four years ago, we re-evaluated our business and what we were trying to do. Whilst the team was able to produce a variety of digital work, we were running a wide range of skillsets which were tough to keep constantly utilised. We were also in danger of losing our identity and what Preloaded stood for. When we realised we couldn’t describe Preloaded in a sentence anymore, we knew we had to change.
We’ve always been passionate about games which have formed a backbone of our output since our inception so we decided to focus on that part of our business, recalibrating the team shape accordingly.
Within six months we went from being a general digital agency to a games studio with a focus on games that do more than just entertain. Since then we’ve become known as a games company developing games with purpose for the likes of the Tate, BBC, Channel 4 Education, Wellcome Collection, Disney and Parliament amongst others.
Going niche felt like a huge risk, but it meant that we could specialise with a goal of being the best in one area. It may have resulted in closing some doors to us, but it made the ones left much wider. It was a major pivot for us, but it was the best decision we’ve ever made and has cemented our reputation as a leading developer of games with purpose.
M: You seem to have gone from strength to strength, what do you think is the key to your continuing success and growth?
P: Focusing on our offering has been integral to our success and we’ve been careful not to underestimate the challenge. Making games with purpose that contain learning outcomes and are fun to play is incredibly hard. The minute you start to diminish either the learning or the fun of playing the game, then the game will fail so balance and nuance in development is core to success. Yes it’s hard, but when it’s done right, the results can be amazing.
Process is also vital to ensuring the best output. We run a pretty tight ship at Preloaded with strong methodologies, production processes and games theory. Everything we do is considered, evaluated and most importantly, rigorously tested. It makes the process of development more expensive, but it means the resulting games are better, more meaningful experiences for audiences.
The other thing we’ve embraced is our business model of being a commission based games studio. Some studios do ‘work for hire’ to pay the bills and subsidise their own IP work, which can result in that work being considered less important and secondary in creative value. The commissioned based model works brilliantly for us as the projects we choose to do allow us the creative freedom to make great work in collaboration with innovative and forward thinking clients. And we get paid a pre-agreed amount, which reduces risk.
This isn’t to say we don’t want to do our own IP work – we do! But we love collaborating with others and see this as one of our key strengths. This might be because of our agency roots or just because we like working with people who ‘get it’. Either way, it works so we intend to stay true to the model.
Finally, we’ve spent a long time finding the best team out there. Preloaded is made up of some incredibly talented individuals who are amongst the best in the world at what they do. Finding good people is hard. We tend not to use recruitment companies to find people. Rather we use our contacts and friends, coupled with people knowing Preloaded and approaching us directly.
M: Is there anything you know now,that you wish you’d known at the start?
P: Tons! It’s hard to even begin to list things that we wish we’d known or foreseen during Preloaded’s life so far. I’m sure that most companies go through similar pains and challenges and make similar mistakes during their development, but invariably it’s an important rite of passage to learn and grow from. The main things I wish I’d known when starting back in the day are:
(top 5 in no particular order)
1. Know your numbers
Don’t wing it. A successful business is fundamentally about making money and sustaining itself and you have to plan and monitor that. Focus on money in and money out on a monthly or ideally weekly basis, and set yourself targets. If you’re a commission based company, you need to understand that you’re selling your time, and be careful to record and monitor that commodity. If you’re developing with funding (family and friends, VC etc), be sure your commercial model is sound and you’re within your development targets and prepare to pivot if needs be. If you begin to make a loss and/or not hit those targets, do something about it immediately. Your first priority is the health of your business, and sometimes you have to make some tough decisions to maintain that. Spend time on the numbers and you’ll be able to constantly monitor the health of your business.
2. Be clear about your USP
It’s a classic cliche but it’s true. If you’re at a dinner party and someone asks you what your company does, you should be able to sum it up in a sentence. If you can’t then you might need to rethink your strategy. It can feel counter intuitive to narrow down your vision, but I really believe it makes sense in the long run.
3. Do the best work you can
Sounds obvious, but it really shows when a game comes out of a passionate team that has absolute faith in what they’re creating. Doing work as ‘bread and butter’ to pay the bills can destroy the soul. Do what you feel most passionate about.
4. Make your own luck
It’s really hard to make a name for yourself in such a competitive and busy space. Planning and strategy alone aren’t enough to stand out, and not even great work guarantees ongoing success. Planning around your output and investing time in promoting your work and yourself is important to remaining front of mind for new business opportunities. Get out there and be a part of the conversation.
5. Have a game plan
It’s easy to start a company without a tangible goal or end point, and without that it’s impossible to get there. Have a realistic vision about where you want the company to be in the next three years, and how do you intend to get there. That kind of long term vision is harder than it sounds, but when you’ve got it, then you’ve got a goal to aim for. And be prepared for it to change as you go. Approach it in an agile way and iterate and pivot. You may end up somewhere else entirely (We didn’t start Preloaded to be a games company) but iterating and amending the plan means you can adapt quickly.
M: Tell me (you don’t have to name names!) about a particularly challenging project, or a total failure, and how you got through it or what you learnt from it.
P: All projects have their ups and downs, but I’m sure everyone has their share of nightmare projects. Our biggest ‘challenge’ happened a few years ago when we developed a game based product for a major drinks brand. It was an innovative distribution mechanic designed to distribute exclusive music tracks and was slightly ahead of it’s time (pre Spotify etc). The project did end up getting launched, but it didn’t get traction and ultimately failed, and we can put that down to some key fundamental problems:
a. Lack of clarity at the beginning of the project. Each party (client/ad agency/us) had different expectations of what the product needed to be. Some of those expectations were very much divorced from available budget as we discovered during the process. Managing that during production was very challenging.
b. The signoff and change control processes weren’t clear, which culminated in ongoing changes and amends by multiple stakeholders, sometimes directly contradicting each other.
c. The actual content in the promotion wasn’t particularly good, so the assumption that people would actively take and share the music was misplaced.
So, most of the problems were process based which we’ve learned from, but it was tough at the time. Often the school of hard knocks is the best way to learn, and on that kind of scale, you tend only to do it the once.
M: You are launching a new site, currently in beta, showcasing “games with purpose”, what’s the idea behind it?
Little Digits on the Games With Purpose website
P: We describe our work as ‘games with purpose’. We make games that not only deliver entertainment but also learning, meaning and message, all within a fun and engaging game experience.
There are some amazing games out there that fit with this description, and we are constantly on the lookout for great examples that we can share and learn from. So we felt that it was important to showcase these great examples to both the industry as well as mainstream audiences, increase discoverability and help raise the bar to increase the levels of quality of work being produced.
So, what started as an idea on the back of a napkin in a coffee shop became Games with Purpose, which officially launched at the Games for Change Festival in New York last week.
Games featured at launch include Dragonbox, the multi-level puzzler getting teens doing algebra, Cart Life, a challenging ‘street vendor’ management sim, and Little Digits, an innovative app using iPad’s multi-touch function to get pre-schoolers counting with their finger.
We’ll be adding more games as we find them, and we’re encouraging people to submit games via the site too. The criteria to be included on the site is simple: fun, high quality products that succeed in their objectives.
The site is completely not-for-profit and our motives are purely altruistic. We just want great games with purpose to get the recognition they deserve.
[Disclosure: edugameshub.org is a supporter of the Games With Purpose website]
M: What do you mean by “games with purpose”? Is this different from “educational games”?
P: In our experience 99% of educational games SUCK. They’re poorly devised and funded with the wrong measurement criteria in place. Invariably, educational games are measured by how educational they are, not how much fun they are, and as long as this continues, educational games will, in general, remain games that audiences have to play, rather than want to play.
If fun isn’t the prerequisite of a game, the absence of fun becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We believe that all types of game, whether educational, social impact or training, need to be measured against the values of the medium.
The games we’re showcasing are the best examples we can find of games that engage players with learning outcomes through fun and quality gameplay. We also want to start a dialogue about games with purpose through the site’s Twitter feed, @gwpurpose, so do follow if you’re interested in the space.
M: How will the selection process work? Who has the final say in what games are considering good enough to go up? Can you tell us a bit more about this?
P: Good question! The team who review the games are all actively involved in the industry and development of ‘games with purpose’ themselves. This means we know how hard it is to make good games that do more than just entertain. We spend a lot of time looking at games and want to share the best ones we find. As time goes on, as well as the core team, our plan is to invite guest reviewers from the industry to get involved and participate in the selection of games for the site. We welcome feedback and would love to hear about any games with purpose that stand out. It’s such an active space that is ripe for development so we hope the site and it’s contents will grow and grow, opening out to new and ever more mainstream audiences looking for games of this kind.
M: Are you excited about the future of games with purpose? Why? What do you think the future holds?
P: We think that using games in education and learning, both casual and serious is a massive growth area. Schools are beginning to embrace technology where up until recently it was banished from the classroom. Tablets and mobile devices are going to enable radically different styles of teaching which will include game based learning as a core strand.
We don’t think it’s a question of if, it’s a question of when.
We think games with purpose are here to stay, and using games to engage audiences with learning is still in it’s infancy with huge growth potential in scale and ambition. It’s already started and the genie is out of the bottle.
M: And finally, what would be your top piece of advice to anyone making educational games, or games with purpose?
P: Remember the fundamental components that make up a great game with purpose: great design, learning integrity and quality production which is above all else, fun.
And always be innovating. It’s a really hard thing to get right, but when you do, and you see your game being successful and actively helping people think and learn, it makes the effort worthwhile.
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Got any questions for Paul? Post them in the comments and we’ll be inviting him back to repond.
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