Wellcome Collection is a free visitor destination in London that explores connections between medicine, life, and art. To reach new audiences, they collaborated with game developers to create educational games based on their collections and knowledge. Their most popular game, High Tea, has been played over 3 million times and stimulated discussion both in-game and online about the 19th century opium trade. Their game Axon on neurons and the brain has also seen almost 4 million plays while effectively teaching players about the subject matter. Through games, Wellcome Collection has been able to engage millions of new people with their content in an enjoyable way.

1. How we got millions of people to play
our games and learn stuff at
Wellcome Collection

2. Wellcome Collection and games
Who are Wellcome Collection?
• A free visitor destination with exhibitions and
events
• Explores the connections between medicine,
life and art in the past, present and future
• At 183 Euston Road, London
• www.wellcomecollection.org

3. Wellcome Collection and games
Why make games?
• Reach new, bigger audiences: people
who play games
• Our stuff (objects, knowledge, themes)
makes great games
• Gameplay is engagement

4. Wellcome Collection and games
How?
• Collaborate on it
• Test it
• Distribute it to portals
• Evaluate the hell out of it

5. Wellcome Collection and games
Memory

6. Wellcome Collection and games
Quiz

7. Wellcome Collection and games
High Tea

8. Wellcome Collection and games
High Tea

9. Wellcome Collection and games
High Tea

10. Wellcome Collection and games
High Tea

11. Summative Games Evaluation
High Tea

12. Wellcome Collection and games
High Tea
• Collaboration involving Preloaded, Mike Jay.
• Played over 3 million times.
• 15 minute dwell time (website average 2 minutes).
• Most plays via game portals, not WC website.
• Hundreds of comments on games portals discussing not only
gameplay but also the subject matter.
• Wider discussion on reviews, blogs, podcasts, YouTube
walkthroughs, Reddit, MetaFilter etc.
• Over 50% of players surveyed were stimulated to find out more
about the 19th-century opium trade and wars.
“How come I only understood what I’d seen in a museum after
playing this game?!’’
Comment on Kongregate

13. Wellcome Collection and games
Axon

14. Wellcome Collection and games
Axon

15. Wellcome Collection and games
Axon
• Collaboration between exhibition curator, neuroscientist and
Preloaded.
• Looked for biological rules that could become the rules of the
game.
• Game nearing 4 million plays.
• 5600 survey responses.
• Gameplay rated highly.
• 76% felt they learnt something from playing the game.
• Over 71% prompted to find out more about neurons and the
brain after playing.
“You made learning fun... rare quality in a game. [5/5]”
Comment on Kongregate

16. Wellcome Collection and games
Share/talk
SHARE museumgames.pbworks.com (High Tea evaluation
under “games evaluations”)
TALK @marthasadie / m.henson@wellcome.ac.uk
PLAY http://www.wellcomecollection.org/explore/play.aspx
JOIN London Educational Games Meetup Group on
meetup.com
*MAKE educational games fun / fun games educational*