Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen's slides from CounterPlay '14.

1. Playful Branding
– How companies can
strengthen education, increase
the fun factor and attract talent
Counterplay, Aarhus 4th April 2014
Serious Games Interactive
Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen
CEO, Stifter og Ph.d.

2. Background
& Work
MA Psychology
PhD Games & Learning
Between industry & research
Serious Games Interactive
- Three series for education
+100 client projects

3. - Research-based company
- Founded in 2006
- Digital universe for learning
- Using games for more than entertainment
- Won several awards for our productions
- 30 Employees
- 9 Nationalities
- + 6 years of Unity 3D experience
We are…

5. Branding that makes
a difference

6. Rationale behind
Create value for company and end-user at the
same time
A medium that through play brings people
deep into a world rather than just superficial
message

7. Why QFO was born
To attract new talent to Maersk Oil and Maersk
Drilling that compete for talent with bigger
industry players like Statoil and Shell.
Communicate that Maersk is more than
container ships
Videos are boring. We need something more
interesting.

8. Quest for Oil
Target group: General public, Students & exp.
professionals
Platform: Digital download
Technology: 3D Unity game engine
Game duration: 8-16 minutes
Production time: 12 months
Content: A main strategy game with several
mini-games.
Maersk Group
www.questforoil.com

9. Integrated gameplay
Close integration between learning
goals, branding message and game goals.
Keep bandwidth at realistic level so too much is
not pushed.
Choose right focus to gamifiy rather than
forcing the medium

10. Results
• Massive media exposure
• Total reach: +40 Millions
• Played games: +225.000
• Awards: Nominations & wins

11. Cargy Dynasty’s birth
The transportation sector is growing and need
more people with a complex skill set.
However, it is perceived as not very attractive
under pressure from other countries with low
wages.
Communicate that transportation sector is
interesting, and more than trouble with
truckers from Bulgaria.
Need to use the language of the people they

12. Cargo Dynasty
Target group: Students – 8-12 grade
Platform: Browser-based & Tablets
Technology: 3D Unity game engine
Game duration: 40-70 minutes
Production time: 18 months
Content: A main strategy game w. several
mini-games.
TUR Forlag og TSU
www.cargodynasty.dk

13. Integrated gameplay
Close integration between learning
goals, branding message and game goals.
Keep bandwidth at realistic level so too much is
not pushed.
Choose right focus to gamefiy rather than
forcing the medium

14. Results
• Good media exposure
• Reach: 1900+ FB Likes
• Awards: Nominations & wins

15. A interesting marriage
Trade associations and companies can develop
intelligent branding that are perfectly aligned
with what Schaffer describe as epistemic games
Instead of donating a library that US digital
games can scale much more aggressively.
We are seeing this happening some places but
still only on a small scale..

16. The fine line
Between education and marketing… never
really been a problem in real life.
Very conscious not too tilt gameplay towards
one company or approach. Integrity needs to
be kept.
Never forced the medium to play if it don’t
want to.

17. Contact
Serious Games Interactive
www.seriousgames.dk
www.globalconflicts.eu
www.playinghistory.eu
Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen
www.egenfeldt.eu
sen@seriousgames.dk