Slide 1

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 2

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 3

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 4

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 5

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 6

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 7

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 8

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 9

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 10

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 11

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 12

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 13

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 14

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 15

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 16

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 17

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 18

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 19

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 20

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 21

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 22

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 23

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 24

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis


Slide 25

Hi,
I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of
Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)
My background is that of a secondary
educator with a major in History.
If you are like me, you wear a number
of hats – I’m a teacher first and
foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”.
I look after a computer lab as a librarian
and one of the things I have noticed is
the number of male students who play
video games before and after school
and during lunch. While some girls do
play, surveys have shown that video
games are largely a male pastime with
membership being as much as 80% in
favour of the gentlemen.

This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where
males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy.
Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly
clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are
higher and more girls attend university.

Vs.

And so…..?

So…What does my company offer – what is the idea?

The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly
linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea
being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which
motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very
specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There
is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the
skills a game imparts.
The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum)
Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air
cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but
they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would
the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use
of primary documents will form part of the simulation.
The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned
using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately
return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred
or information that should have been identified.

What market does your simulation address?
As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility,
these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent
and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on
learning outcomes for serious learning to occur. The market that we are aiming at is
the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be
individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual
historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time.
While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool
within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the
right approach and presentation.

As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50
billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes
to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of
text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be
realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that
figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of
the market.

Why will school districts buy your product?

First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that
is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console
type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in
their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money.
Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage
and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies
obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time
when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the
context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching
community to start with.

Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders?
In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and
roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers.
For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions
that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the
form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors.
As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one
simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest
obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as
important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well,
there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post
FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get
teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we
will not be successful.
The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We
will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high
schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they
suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the
market needs?
Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love)
that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very
much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these
“digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge
and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our
simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this
resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week
in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is
to get into a computer lab generally.

Additionally…

We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection
that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written
responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we
recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe.

means

against

What is the revenue model? What does the product cost?
The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation
or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school.
Single user
$25
Class set of 30
$175
School Site License
$350

Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and
handling charges and delivery wait times.

How do you propose to market your product?
We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such
as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events
we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form
reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we
both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as
Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training),
Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and
Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not
directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then
students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force.
We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners
have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and
current.

How else do you plan to effectively advertize?
While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate,
“Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network
reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month)
where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can
target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young
adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our
investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive
amounts of searches.

What’s the competition in the marketplace?
At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which
produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to
find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in
the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts
–Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics
and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are.
Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to
complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete.
Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations
3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios
based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed?
A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many
are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the
storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that
are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education
prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and
marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers.
We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest
commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development
costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product.
(Kevin Corti -CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an
experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan?
In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to
design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in
total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal
communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing
“support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we
are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next
page.

Expenditures for years
2009-2011

How much will your company gross in a three year period?
Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to
you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of
the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the
remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we
are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you
would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation
(actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out
the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am
basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the
role of your typical venture capitalist.
In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the
site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include
single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the
educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat
customers for years to come.

So, how do you view your chances of succeeding?
There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is
worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall.
Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum
and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside
the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported
in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing
additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by
teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are
charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting
slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust
simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games.
If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our
vision/mission.
Thank-you for your time,
Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc.
250 951 9626

References:
Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.
http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm
Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational
simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov.
2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The
Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking
Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web.
29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066
Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne
Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved
November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobeserious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html
"Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The
World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoys
Underachieve.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to
improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf
"PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and
development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning
and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/
"The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada:
Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique
national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

"The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.
http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70
Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 ::
The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12
Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2
.html
Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education
Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21
Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009.
www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

Self-evaluation…
Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the
business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little
background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major
in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly
there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped
immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to
develop your first serious simulation.
Strengths:
I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to
support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry
and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the
other three.
“Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally
sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market
at the moment.
I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and
what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

Weaknesses:
My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a
business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted
or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could
access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult –
businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of
competing.
I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School
Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this
but nothing jumped out at me.
Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using
MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a
Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make
the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or
just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is
presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what
follows I am satisfied with.

Last Thoughts…
Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product
and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done.
Greg Lewis