Reach More Learners, Get Better Engagement

Let us make an educational game for you — and it costs less than might you think.

Whether you’re trying to reach a broader audience, better engage your existing audience with a more interactive version of your content, more effectively collect data or improve learning outcomes, our games have a demonstrated efficacy in making that possible.

We work with organizations like yours to turn existing content in any format — whether it’s currently a PDF, online click throughs, static webpage, paperwork sheet, even if it’s just information in your brain — into playable interactive games that have the ability to teach, test and track.

Game costs can range from $5,000 to $250,000, depending on the scope of the game you have in mind and how many different platforms (web, iOS, Android, Windows) you want it to run on. The typical game we make is in the $10,000 – $50,000 range with variation mostly due to the number of levels desired.

TYPES OF GAME

Clients come to us with all sorts of project needs and goals. Approaching 30 games created to date, we can make a game about almost anything. Just some of the topics we’ve covered so far include:

Roughly one third of our games are bilingual and we have the ability to create games in multiple languages. We can do in-house English/Spanish translations. For any other language, we can make a game as long as vetted text (and optional audio) translation are provided.

WHY 7 GENERATION GAMES

Grow Your Reach: Organizations that have built out games with 7 Generation Games have expanded their audience reach on average more than 20x. Our games have made it possible for our clients/collaboration partners to reach 50x, even 100x, more people than were previously interacting with their learning content.

Better Outcomes: In peer-reviewed and journal published data, users who played our games learning outcomes improved 3x over the control group when it came to educational content delivered through our games compared versus traditional delivery methods.

Improved Engagement: We design games for maximum impact. We know the more time users engage with content, the more they learn from it. With our games, we’ve been able to increase user engagement (measured by user retention) by 66%.

COST

How much does a game cost?

This is one of the first questions anyone has, and we have sworn to never be one of those places where you can’t find any kind of pricing anywhere. Our game projects start at $5,000 and run upwards of $250,000. That’s a big pricing range, but there’s a huge range when it comes to what a game can include.

Here’s an example of a $5,000 game. It can be played through by users in 5-7 minutes. The exact script for this game was provided for the project. This game has no data reporting.

Here’s an example of a $10,000 game. It can be played in 15-20 minutes. The exact script for this game was provided for the project. This game does not have data reporting. This game focuses solely on instructional content without integrated assessment.

Here is an example of a $25,000 game. It takes about 30-minutes play. The client provided the standards to cover, but 7 Generation Games did all script and educational content development. Game data is tracked and provided via reporting dashboard. The game includes educational instruction and assessment. Incorrect responses lead to additional instruction. Progress within the game is saved so players can leave and log back in.

Here is an example of a $50,000 game. This game takes about an hour to play. For this project, we worked with the client to convert existing content into a narrative compatible with a digital game format. The game includes both extensive instructional content and assessment of the information covered. Progress within the game is saved and game data can be accessed.

Here is an example of a $100,000 game. This game takes up to two hours to play through fully and is built to encourage replayability, backed by data showing that players regularly engage with modules one that once. This project includes full data reporting. This project also included multiple game design workshops to develop content that met intended user needs and original artwork development.

These prices are for games playable on the web. Android and/or iOS applications are available as an add-on rate of 10% additional cost for one operating system, 15% for both.

FAQs

What kinds of organizations do you make games for?

Our typical game client/collaborator is a small to mid-size organization with educational curriculum or informational content that they are looking to get out to a broader audience and/or better engage their existing audience around. However, they either do not have the in-house technical staff to create an educational game or in-house technical staff do not have the bandwidth to take on a game project given their current workloads. That’s where we come in, bringing expertise in creating customized educational games for a fraction of what it would cost to make one from scratch.

Our clients and collaboration partners are as diverse as the games we make. Some of the types of organizations we have worked with include: language preservation and revitalization organizations; community nonprofits; financial institutions; board game publishers; substance abuse prevention organizations; agricultural organizations; career and technical training organizations; government entities and agencies (in the U.S. and Latin America); curriculum publishers; tribal nations; healthcare organizations; for-profit companies and more.

What audiences do you make games for?

Learning has no age limit. That said, roughly 75% of our games target K12 users, primarily Grades 3-9 or youth from ages 8-14. The additional 25% of users break down between: families, to be used by parents and/or children (10%); adolescents, youth up to age 21 (10%); and targeted at adult learners (5%).

However, we have seen that even for our games that are targeted at the K12 market, between 5-10% of users for those games are adults. You’re never too old to learn new things or brush up on things you previously learned.

Where have organizations gotten funding for games?

We’ve worked with a variety of organizations with a variety of budgets that have received money from a variety of places.

In many cases, the funds have come from federal, nonprofit or industry-specific grant awards. While we do not write grants for organizations, if you are putting in a grant to fund a game and you are looking for technology partner, please feel free to reach out to us. In many cases, we have provided resumes and/or capability statements as well as letters of support for clients to submit as part of their applications.

Other times, organizations have been able to fund games projects through various internal funding “buckets.” This could include marketing, content development, software development, bilingual outreach, research funding (around data collection) and more.

For several tribal projects, funding has come from tribal departments of education with tribal council support.

Some projects have been funded solely by individuals.

In situations where clients have funds that need to be spent by the end of a fiscal or calendar year or within specific timeline, we have the ability to quickly turn around proposals and projects.

We regularly work with prospective clients to build out proposals that work within their budgets, funding thresholds and with the necessary language that may be required to secure project funding.

What topics do you cover?

Approaching 30 games created to date, we can make a game about almost anything. Just some of the topics we’ve covered so far include: K12 mathematics standards, social studies, cultural history, improving literacy, environmental science, substance abuse prevention, workforce development skills, financial literacy, healthy decision-making, language learning, music history and more. Clients come to us with all sorts of project needs and goals.

We have deep expertise in working with content covering topics that are culturally sensitive (e.g. forced relocation of Indigenous people) or subject sensitive (e.g. substance abuse) and transforming it into interactive digital media that is engaging and educational without trivializing the subject matter.

Many of our games can be viewed through our website or the Growing Math Project; however, we have also done white-label games (that is games for clients that they host, sell and market exclusively to their own audiences/users).

What devices do the games run on? Does it run on Chromebooks? iPads? Androids? Phones?

In short, we can make games that run on almost any device. By default, all games run in a web browser (e.g. Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox). These games run on any desktop, laptop and Chromebook. We also have expertise is developing games that can be played on iPad or Android tablets and as mobile phone applications for Android and iOS (Apple). We have also done games that can be downloaded to a desktop or laptop devices in settings with low connectivity. The one exception is that we don’t develop games for gaming or virtual reality systems, such as Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation or Oculus/Meta Quest.

Prices reflect the cost to develop games playable on the web. Android and/or iOS applications are available as an add-on rate of 10% additional cost for one operating system, 15% for both.

We’ve never made a game. Do we have to design it ourselves?

You’ve never made a game? Not a problem! Lucky for you, we’ve made a bunch. Clients come to us with content in all forms, ranging from fully formed, story-boarded scripts to “we’ve got an idea…”

Our team is experts taking existing content in almost imaginable format, from existing text (books, articles, PDFs, website content) to academic and archival research to oral histories to board games, transforming it into engaging digital learning games. Similarly, we’ve built games with no more direction than “We’re looking for something that covers this specific academic standard.” Most of the projects we do fall somewhere in between.

We work to make the process as easy as possible for you, enabling you to be as hands-on or hands-off as you want to be.

As part of our pricing, we offer (optional) virtual game design workshop sessions where we work collaboratively with your and/or your team to co-design your game project. In these meetings, we work closely and in dialogue with you to make sure the game is aligned with your vision to best serve your audience. On-site workshops are also available for additional cost.

That said, we’ve also done projects where the guidance was, “We want a game about X. Please build that out for us.” Those games are awesome too.

We pride ourselves on taking content that might come across as — dare we say — boring and turning it into a learning game that kids ask to play.

What about data reporting and user privacy?

Games can be built to include or not include data reporting. About 70% of our games do have data collection integrated with-in the game. Data can include everything from number of registered users, number of sign-ins, time of engagement, performance on in-game assessment and more. One of our founder’s Ph.D. is in applied statistics, so she is happy to discuss data needs in depth.

But for the other 30%, in-game data collection is not necessary. For example, if the primary goal of your game is to expand your content to a broader audience, site-level or basic app store data such as number of page visits or downloads can provide that information.

To comply with privacy regulations, 7 Generation Games does not collect PII (personally identifying information). We find this to be a best practice to maintain compliance user privacy protections and regulations, including FERPA and COPPA. While we can and have developed games for clients that do collect PII, 7 Generation Games will not host games that collect this kind of data.

Who owns the games 7 Generation Games develops?

You – the client – own all rights to game itself, including the game content, language, original audio recordings, any original artwork developed for the project and assessment data. Once the game is delivered to you, you can sell the game and/or scale to unlimited users without incurring any additional costs.

7 Generation Games does retain the rights to the underlying game code and all aspects of our development platform, including existing artwork and sound effects from our libraries that may be used. In other words, you can’t take the game we’ve developed for you and reverse engineer it and sell it to someone else. (Yes, we’re aware that if you had the time and technical skills to reverse engineer a game we built for you, you’d probably have just built the game out for yourself in the first place.)

How is the game distributed and/or hosted?

There are two options for distributing and hosting customized games.

Option 1: You Host.

For the browser version of the game, we develop the game and provide it to you as a file that can be uploaded to your web server. We can work with your I.T. person to integrate the game within your website in a support role, but you need to have someone your end who manages/runs your site.

For mobile applications, we can provide a build of the app that you can upload to your own app store (App or Google Play). We do not manage other parties’ app stores, so it is the client’s responsibility to relay any app store communications to our staff. If you are looking to sell/monetize your app, we do recommend hosting through your own store and can coordinate with your further to ensure you have the app in the build formats needed from us.

Option 2: We Host.

For the browser version of the game, there is two ways we partner to host.

In the first scenario, the game is fully accessed through our site. We create a 7 Generation Games URL specific to your game, e.g. www.7generationgames.com/yourgame. We ensure that your branding is clear throughout the game.

Another option is that the game lives on our site, but it accessed directly from your webpage. In this case, we can work with you to create a landing page for the game on your site. This is the page where users will access your game. Once they click play, the next page links them to the game that is hosted on our site. When they finish the game, the last page directs them back to an end game page on your site. From a user experience, it seems like they never left your page. However, this allows us to host the game on our server.

For mobile and tablet applications, we host the games in our 7 Generation Games app store with your game and company name clearly in the title, game summary and in-game.

The option of 7 Generation Games hosting is one that 90% of our clients have selected. This option makes it easier for us and you when it comes to fixing any bugs should they occur, do routine updates and make adjustments in response to app store policy changes.

For games hosted by 7 Generation Games, we charge an annual hosting fee that is typically around $250 per year, based on game length. If a game receives significant traffic (i.e. tens of thousands of users per month), we will reach out to discuss increase in cost or shifting to a self-hosted option.

Based on current app store structures, there would be no additional cost for app hosting based on number of downloads.

What about maintenance and bug testing?

All maintenance and bug fixes are included from one year of launch. That means 365 days (366 in a leap year) from the day your game goes live.

We also provide an extended maintenance option for a period of up to three years or you can opt to add maintenance after Year 1. Depending on game length and platform, maintenance/annual update costs can be as little as $100 per year.

Web-hosted games are built so that they have a maximum shelf-life with minimal updating required. Browsers games built today can be expected to still be playable in that form for 7-10 years with standard annual maintenance.

On average, mobile applications can be supported and maintained for at least five years with minimal updates required. After five-years, apps may require an upgrade to be compatible with advances to mobile device operating software over time. This is typically priced at 10% of the initial game cost.

Additionally, 7 Generation Games develops all games so that projects can be expanded at a later date (e.g. more educational modules, adding a bilingual functionality, etc.) for just the cost of creating new content with no underlying additional software architecture costs.

Can you make bilingual games?

Yes! Roughly one third of our games are bilingual and we have the ability to create games in multiple languages. We can do in-house English/Spanish translations. For any other language, we can make a game as long as vetted text (and optional audio) translation are provided. In all of our bilingual games, the language of instruction can be user controlled for text, audio and video on every in-game screen. The primary language of instruction can be set as a default like in this game or user selected at the start of play like in this game. We can also do multiple versions of a game in the different languages (such as this project where you can choose an English or a Spanish version).

Games That Make You Smarter