An educational game design course created by Professor Maja & Paul Pivec, has taught over 300 information design students at the University of Applied Sciences Joanneum in Austria. They wanted to introduce this topic to the coming generation of potential game designers and make them aware of this new discipline along with its specifics. The challenge for students was to create a concept proposal for a publisher of educational games. Based on the course work and results, Pivec and Pivec analysed how students perceived the area of educational games for the use of teaching and as a career path.

The class was a role-play itself i.e. game about designing a game, where students had to work in teams, create a game design company and take a specific role and responsibilities within the team e.g. game producer, game developer, programmer, etc. to contribute to the task accomplishment.  The progress of the work along with the problems they encounted were documented within the company blogs.

The course covers topics including the process of commercial game design, taking into consideration the pedagogical design required to achieve the desired learning outcomes. When designing games for learning both the target audience and the learning outcomes have to be considered at the initial conception of the game. In this way teachers can easily recognise the value of this resource and the possibilities to include such games in the curriculum.

The game concepts differ in excellence from the innovative use of technology to their possible market potential. Each semester the class concludes with the presentation of the Golden Pineapple award ceremony where all student concepts are displayed.