Games and Learning

It seems part magic and part dumb luck. A kitten card game raises almost $9 million. A movie based on a cult TV show draws in nearly $6 million. A space simulator game still in development brings in $80 million. But for every successful campaign, Kickstarter is littered with failed game funding pleas. So what works and why?

We have spent the last year reporting on a lot of developments affecting the learning game industry — from the purchase of Minecraft by Microsoft to the launch of SimCityEDU to the growing phenomena of Clever. With 2014 drawing to a close, we thought we would highlight a few of the key trends we have seen emerging this last year.

Common Core is the name of a set of standards developed by state education officials and adopted by nearly every state in the union. Although much-discussed, it is important to differentiate what they are and what they are not. We have an explainer.