Developing a gaming app is one of the most challenging, at the same time profitable ventures, as seen in a survey is game development. If you check out the statistics given by Flurry, people have spent approximately 86% of the time using different apps, and 32% of the app time is spent playing games.
With technological advancements like artificial intelligence, AR, and VR, users expect more advanced technologies, and gamers are more inclined towards mobiles that are compatible with to latest gaming technologies.
There are several challenges game developers face while creating games be it an educational game or any serious game. Here are some common problems that gamers face.
1. Maintaining The Fun Factor With Educational Value
One of the toughest challenges of developing a serious game is implementation it and ensuring it is fun and educational at the same time.
You need to establish the learning objectives from the get-go, and designing a visually appealing game can help maintain education and fun keep you on the right path. Serious game or educational game development becomes easier if you know your goals and what you expect students to learn from them. As they say, “Luck favors the prepared!” So, ensure that you have accurate conceptualization and planning in the initial stages of your game development process.
2. Selecting The Right eLearning Platforms
Serious or educational games can play on both online and offline. If you want, you can develop them in a way that they are available on learners’ computers, mobile devices, or Virtual Reality headsets, even if they are offline. It is your job to select the right platform because each platform offers a different gaming experience from the others. It is crucial to find suitable platforms early on so you can improvise your development strategies according to them.
3. Releasing To Learners
As a game developer, it can be tricky to figure out when and where to deliver your learning content to your learners. If it is about delivering the app to boost employee performance, it can be done organically. However, when it comes to students, it becomes difficult because you need to think about the age group you are targeting and their preferences. If a school includes gaming apps to encourage students to learn while playing, then it can happen organically without forcing them or pressuring them, especially with the pandemic situation when everything is online. If game developers consider releasing levels of the game over time and students gain some points or fun stuff, it can keep their curiosity and energy up.
4. Find ways to Dodge High Costs
One of the main problems game developers have to face is that there are very few options to make cost-efficient games. You need to research to find free platforms or low-cost platforms that can help you fulfill your need. Try to find customizable games where you can integrate all the details of a learning strategy.
However, you can create a game from scratch, but that is a lengthy process. If you choose to create a game, then you need to find the correct design company, implement your objectives and make it flexible as design may change.
You need to be ready to face all the challenges that come with it.
5. Figuring Out The Desired Learning Outcomes
If you are not sure about the goals of creating a serious or educational game, you cannot fill the knowledge gaps between your employees and what you want to achieve. You need to recognize the whole point of creating the whether it is an educational game for students or employees. If the game is for a specific company, you can set up meetings with your staff and carry out surveys and questionnaires.
Moreover, you can even create groups in social media or have discussion groups to understand and come to a conclusion before you develop a game. It is like doing homework and learning more information beforehand so you can create a better game that can benefit all.
6. Collecting Data
If you are using technology to train and bring out the best in your corporate employees, then you have one key advantage. You have the chance to gather real-time data. If you are doing in a classroom environment, you have depended on quizzes and tests to understand the employee’s progress.
However, a serious game can help you deliver various and specific information for gauging your employee skill acquisition power and knowledge retention capabilities.
Data collecting Data is key to serious game development and customization. So, if you make sure that you have got the right information, you can develop the different stages of a game with accuracy.
7. Maintenance
When you are building a game application, it needs periodic maintenance activities; it could be bug fixing or launching the latest upgrades or new improvements like its loading time. Moreover, every app need time and money to launch new versions, so if you think new versions or upgrades come at zero costs, you are wrong.
So, the best solution is to take help from an app development agency. It can save both time and money.
8. Operating System Fragmentation
When you are developing a game, you have to deal with operating systems, and there are a lot of operating systems in the market. But all of them have a set of rules and SDK. So you need to think, and question do I need to design my game according to these operating systems? Your answer should be No! There are cross-platform tools like Unity, mosync, and PhoneGap that make it easy to streamline the code and also make it available to be used for other Operating systems.
9. Dealing with Security Concerns
The most difficult challenge is to protect your app or gaming software. You need to ensure that the app is always up to date, and users must provide details to keep the device secure. It is the responsibility of the development company to secure the game from hackers or malware. For this, companies use encrypted methods so that no one gets unauthorized access to user information even if the device in which the game is being played is lost or damaged.
10. Adapting The Game
Suppose you have managed to avoid ruining or messing up the above challenges of creating a successful game; great! Now the time has come to go through the data, analyze it, and adapt the game according to different information.
There is always room for improvement; if you are making an assignment on game development, you can take homework help and learn the tricks.
Make sure to constantly check the initial stages of the game and check how users interact with the game, you can ask for their opinions, and you can improve as you see fit.
Here are some educational games for students that you can use:
- Civilization Revolution
- Math Ninja
- Code Spells
- Little Alchemy 2
- Flags Quiz
- Google Feud
- Ultimate Sudoku
- Math Mahjong Relax
List of games for improving employee productivity
- What’s my name
- Office trivia game
- No smiling
- Ultimate dinner party
- Back-to-back drawing
- The barter puzzle
- Karaoke
- Two truths and a lie
- Count to 20
- Battle of the airbands
- Follow the leader
- Under 18
- Escape room quests
- Murder mystery dinner party
- Powerpoint karaoke
- Charades
- Video gaming tournament
- Googly eyes
- Code of conduct
- Silver lining
- Odd couples
- Birthday line-up
- Lights, camera, action!
- Improving self-esteem
- Shark tank
- Memory wall
- Minefield
- Egg drop
- Scavenger hunt
- Lasertag
- Go-kart racing
- Group juggle
- Ropes course
- River crossing
- Kickball
Final Thoughts
The above-mentioned challenges are quite common, and every game developer faces, especially the ones who are developing the serious game. However, if you are making an assignment on game development, you can seek assignment help and learn about the tricks and aspects of your topic.