COVERITLIVE.COM

11:46

Baltimore Sun - Hey gang, we'll start our live chat with Nick Maynard of Doorways to Dreams in about 15 minutes. That gives you time to test out Doorways' Celebrity Calamity game. Links to that and other games are on the blog. Or, while you wait, take the poll below.

11:50

Baltimore Sun - Nick Maynard is the Director of Innovation for Doorways to Dreams (D2D) Fund. He directs the financial entertainment initiative. Since joining D2D, Nick has led innovation projects improving marketing to LMI families, piloting prize-based savings in the financial services industry, and offering US Savings Bonds at tax time. Prior to joining D2D, Nick spent almost a decade providing customer, market, and operational strategy consulting to Fortune 1000 executives while at Deloitte Consulting and Braxton Associates. Nick holds both a Masters in Business Administration and a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University. He also holds a Bachelors of Engineering and Operations Research from Princeton University.

11:50

12:00

Baltimore Sun -

Nick, thanks for joining us today.

12:00

Nick Maynard - I'm happy be here.

12:00

Baltimore Sun -

I have to admit, I did a poor job when I first played Celebrity Calamity, but it was fun. When and how did the idea of teaching finances through gaming come about?

12:01

Nick Maynard - Our co-founder, Peter Tufano of Harvard Business Schoool started looking into video games as a means to teach personal finance about 4 years ago. He does research in the financial education world, and he also noticed the large market for video games. That is where it began...

12:01

Baltimore Sun -

Early results of Celebrity Calamity show that people do pick up lessons from the game and have greater confidence in their ability to manage finances. Why do games work when classroom instruction doesn’t seem to?

12:03

Nick Maynard - Games have a couple of things going for them -- increasing motivation for learning the material which can be a huge hurdle for financial education and allowing players to perform with real world tools (like credit and debit) in a game world.

12:03

[Comment From Tim ]
Why casual games?

12:04

Nick Maynard - We chose casual games for three main reasons: (1) these games can be distributed widely, (2) they have high rates of play among women; and (3) they are coffee break games, easily accessible and easy to pick up and put down.

12:04

[Comment From Sue Rogan ]
Nick--what age group does the game target?

12:06

Nick Maynard - Celebrity Calamity was built with and for adults, especially women aged 18 to 32. Our game development process integrated feedback from this audience into the game's design, teaching points, and even the celebrity characters. With that said, we received positive reactions from high schoolers and Baby Boomers.

12:06

Baltimore Sun - Tim and Sue, if you're still on, did you play the games? What did you think?

12:06

Baltimore Sun -

Meanwhile, Nick, the four games mentioned in my article on Sunday all have very different approaches. Celebrity Calamity is quick and fun, The Great Piggy Bank Adventure has more levels and more lessons, Moneytopia takes you through 40 years of financial decisions and Stagecoach Island is a 3-D virtual world that players are expected to explore. Are games so different because this is a relatively new field and game designers are trying to find out what works best, or is it that each game is trying to reach a different audience?

12:08

[Comment From Sue Rogan ]
I just happened to see this chat now so have not played them, but will and let you know. Just curious, where is Innovation for Doorways to Dreams Fund--are they based in Maryland etc?

12:08

Nick Maynard - I think its the former. By developing different types of games, we can learn which have the most impact and what the trade-offs of each strategy. For D2D, we feel like a library of casual games, each teachign a few key lessons very well was the appropriate strategy for busy adults either in school, working, or taking care of the kids.

12:09

Nick Maynard - Doorways to Dreams (D2D) Fund is in Boston, MA. We are small, national focused nonprofit that works on innovations to help low-to-moderate income Americans save money and build assets.

12:10

Baltimore Sun -

Do you think lessons taught in games stick with players for months later or even change behavior?

12:11

Nick Maynard - That is a great question. Given the positive early results we've seen, our next step in measuring results is to answer this exact questoin (persistance of learning over time). In addition, we hope to try and measure impact of the game on real world behavior.

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