Activities
A new generation
of educational video games
​A DIAGNOSIS AS A MANIFESTO
In just a few years, video games have become a worldwide social phenomenon that extends to the entire social and cultural sphere. Its industry weighs more than the film and book industries. 90% of students are now gamers. However, video games have not yet found their place in the world of education. There are specific reasons for this, to which Ikigai proposes to provide answers in order to put educational video games at the service of education by addressing a mature audience of gamers.
Educational games have difficulty meeting the quality criteria to which the market has accustomed users because their development requires many skills that projects have difficulty in bringing together. Their development cost is high and the thematic offer is limited. Therefore, the pooling of resources in educational structures is essential. With a life cycle that is too often limited both by their content and by the evolution of machines, educational games are waiting for a dedicated and centralized platform that guarantees the quality and visibility of their distribution. Their handling is also not well adapted to a teacher population.
​All skills
​serving a new generation of video games.
The Ikigai Games For Citizens association has a team of video game and web development professionals. It puts its know-how and resources at the service of teachers and institutions for the realization of personalized projects with high educational value. The large-scale distribution of the productions towards students is ensured through the Ikigai.games portal, as well as through the main stores on the market, for use on computers as well as on smartphones. This dedicated platform of services provides a global environment offering multiplayer use, the collection and processing of learning analytics for the constant improvement of learning contexts, as well as simple and user-friendly management tools for partner institutions.
​Collaboration and mutualization
as a means of producing quality digital content.
Video game is at the crossroads of many skills, which makes it a rich and complex environment. For it to become an efficient educational tool, it requires knowledge in game design, programming, web development, user experience design, art direction but also in didactics, educational engineering, learning analytics (data processing), network administration for a public of teachers and students, etc. The Ikigai consortium and its association Games For Citizens aim to bring together all the players in the field of educational games in order to mobilize their skills in a collaborative, shared and transdisciplinary approach.
This is the way to optimize production costs in order to make development of video games on a large scale accessible. While promoting the development of skills in schools, Ikigai allows for an increase in the volume of the edutainment offer (a new educational video game produced within the network requires the mobilization of a typical budget of 50 to 200 k€. As a reminder, industry games can cost up to 500 million euros!)
Big data and artificial intelligence
​in the service of education.
The Ikigai platform ensures the collection of usage data of the educational games on an unprecedented scale in an ethical and GDPR-compliant approach. The collection of sufficiently large amounts of data is a determining factor in unlocking on the use of artificial intelligence for digital pedagogy, the construction of learning representations, and the formulation of pedagogical advice for the benefit of learners. The Ikigai platform therefore offers a unique opportunity to conduct ambitious research and to place France and Europe in a leadership position in this strategic area, in order to succeed in the challenge of hybridizing training and lifelong learning.
Digital gaming at the service
of your structure.
of a sustainable strategy
The large-scale distribution of gamified educational solutions, video games or print & play board games, constitutes an element of influence and valorization for each partner of the network. The Ikigai team takes care of the maintenance of the sources and their regular recompilation to follow the evolution of the different operating systems that support the games. It also ensures that the games are available on the main market stores and on the dedicated Ikigai portal. Our platform guarantees the sustainability of our partners' investments by ensuring the integration of the games developed, their evolution over time, and their use in a genuine quality approach. The Ikigai.games portal is the nerve center of the educational video game industry, bringing together millions of pupils, students, professionals and citizens in a popular education approach. It is an essential tool for institutions wishing to be part of the educational innovation landscape.
​Mediation
for cultural and scientific subjects.
Beyond its purely educational objectives, video game is a way to reach new populations that are not very sensitive to traditional methods of scientific and cultural mediation (museums, science festivals, exhibitions, conferences, etc.). Offering playful activities directly accessible on computers or smartphones, but also in public transport, are opportunities to attract new audiences to more traditional activities. At a pivotal moment in the evolution of our societies faced with major changes, raising awareness and transmitting the results of research is a major societal challenge. Featuring information exchange systems that stimulate the involvement of players and teachers, our creations also allow for the development of gamified participatory research strategies.
​at the service of your projects.
A methodology
The Ikigai network assists its partners for authentic shared projects benefiting from all the network's infrastructures. Our team of professionals provides personalized assistance to define the outline of the projects in terms of game design; we can take charge of all or part of the development.
Ikigai generally assists establishments in two stages.
​
• The composition of the multidisciplinary team intended for the development of the game; the definition of the specifications based on a controlled and credible provisional budget.
​
• The development of the game itself when the funds have been mobilized, possibly by responding to calls for tender with the support of the network. The approach is at the initiative of the partners in order to develop their project. The only obligation is to share, at the network level, the solutions developed in a win-win mode.
