Q&A Part 5 | Vivian Tan

So we have considered that. One of the reasons why we decided against that was the amount of control you have over that platform. So I, for instance, going back to the Second Life example, I thought it's like, OK, here's this platform that's already created. but it wasn't really being updated enough to fit modern needs, also there was just too many other things going on in there that did not make it an ideal teaching platform. We considered Minecraft, there actually is MinecraftEdu, which is a really great program for teaching mathematics and other subjects within Minecraft, but then again, they're still at the mercy of the platform of the game itself, I don't know if they worked out some sort of deal with Microsoft where they can continue making it. I think that's the case, but we didn't want to risk having someone else's platform determine what the scope of our game could be. But that said, if I could do it all over again, I would probably experiment with something like, you know, like a Half-Life mod or something. I was going to ask that. Half-Life 2 has Epic Exactly. That you can teach and like they have lessons already pre-built in the game, you know, and yeah, maybe I'll chop some of that off, but— Yeah, I know, I think if I could start over, I would at the very least experiment with a Half-Life mod, but one of the benefits to building this from scratch is that it makes it a lot more accessible for kids and teachers who are not really gamers. So we can— we can make the interface simpler, for instance, and make it a lot easier for teachers to use than going to them and say, hey, download a game that pretty much looks like Half-Life and then use that for teaching. But I think basically, long story short, it's having the sort of flexibility to tailor the game to our audience. was a big bonus. It was a lot harder because you have to build everything from scratch. It's not as advanced, as you say, a lot of immersive virtual worlds could be, but at the same time, that makes it more accessible for people who are not, who don't have access to technology like that. Like, one of the reasons why it's so important our game is kind of old school in terms of downloading it onto a computer before you can play, and eventually we're going to put it on the web, as opposed to using tablet devices or something, is also so that we can cater to schools or users who are not in Silicon Valley and are very unfamiliar or don't have access to more advanced technology. Yeah. Over there?

So I'm wondering, So this somewhat applies to the game you play more often, but I think this also applies to anybody who makes an app or anything that people have to come back to.

Uh-huh.

Also tied to the monetization thing earlier, but how have you evolved habit forming and habit generation for playing this and engaging with this? Because if I'm understanding this correctly, students will play this in class, but there's also a high likelihood that they put this at home. So how have you either built into the product itself or the way that the product has been shown to people to say this is something that you should really be coming back to and engaging with on a regular basis?

Continuity, I think, is one of the keywords we're looking for. So I think I touched on this earlier. There are a lot of really cool math apps You can get in the iTunes Store and all that— sorry, the App Store— but they're segmented mostly. There are a couple of really good math edtech companies out there that make learning apps, but even if they're developed by the same company, you learn one subject, then you have to download a different app and learn the next one. So there's no continuity there, and continuity is inherent in math learning itself. You build upon the previous lessons. So what we want to do there is have a single world and a single character, maybe different avatars, but you evolve your character over time. So with the same sort of pull that MMOs have over the years where you keep coming back because, hey, your character is now level 90, whatever, and you have all this cool stuff in your inventory, you don't want to just let that go to waste, right? So the idea here is if a kid starts playing Math Breakers in 1st grade, by the time she gets to 6th grade, she's going to have invested so much in that character, she's not gonna wanna let it go that easily. And that gives us a lot more time to continue innovating. Kinda even with WoW, you get these dips and like, oh, this game's getting old, and they release something new and then— People start coming back. People start coming back. At this moment, we don't have anything— we don't have enough content, I think. And that's our bottleneck right now, where kids are so smart, they blow through this content so quickly, and there's not enough for them to continue coming back. So that's one area where we have to create more. And going back to the previous monetization, we would need to create more to sustain people willing to visit, revisit on a monthly basis to keep them in the game. Another major point on that is in addition to content creation by third parties, multiplayer is also something we're looking at. But I think the limitation that we're facing with multiplayer is that because we're talking about kids, a lot of them under 13, a lot of Online privacy issues. Communication is a big thing. You don't want to go into a multiplayer game and not be able to talk to your teammates. But you also don't want to let loose a group of 10-year-olds and give them things to shoot at and let them talk amongst themselves, because all sorts of things can go on there. So, but trying to figure that out is the big next step, because once you can play with your buddies, you'll want to come back to the game. Yeah.

Have you thought about certifications? Like, I've reached a certain level and I'm certified that I know certain topics in mathematics. And on that note, have you thought about monetizing that?

Yes, it's come up.

Like Duolingo is doing right now.

Yeah, it's come up. It's something we want to approach carefully because, again, we don't want it to become another kind of extrinsic motivation thing. It would be useful though for showcasing your accomplishments, you know, a way to brag about what you've done.

Like you said, people spend, I don't know how many hours in that game.

Yeah. Again, it comes back to a privacy issue because we don't want kids under 13 publishing You know, their real identities online, or we have to get permission from the parents or schools to be able to allow them to do that. But it's like, is it— do they get the thrill of showing off if it's just avatar number whatever saying, hey, I've reached this level? But if they can't self-publish that and they have to rely on a teacher or a parent to say, my child has reached this, then— You know, it's not as— Thomas. Yeah.

Like, for fulfilling certain requirements, if they want to get into some college or program that needs this type of certification, then you can create a certification that they can ask for it using their players. Not you for publishing, but actually if I'm playing it, I have certification, and that's for that certification that I actually know what I'm doing.

OK.

I know the subjects. And then that certification means it helps that kid get into a certain program.

It is possible. That comes back to the earlier question about showing that learning has occurred. And I think once we can quantify how much they're learning, that may be a possibility. But at this moment, we're focused more on motivating them to learn and building that sort of number flexibility so that becomes an intrinsic part of their math knowledge as opposed to meeting certain milestones to have that certification. I think it's possible to say, hey, I've completed all these Common Core standards for grade 2 or something, but whether that correlates to I have learned— the Common Core, learn everything I need to know about that level. It's 2 very different things. But yeah, that's a good point. It's something we've looked into. Yes?

Has there been any kids got addicted to the game?

Have what?

Addicted to the game.

We got an email, I think a couple of weeks ago. Something along the lines like, I bought a copy of this for my nephews over Christmas— not Christmas, sorry, summer. And there's only one computer, so there has been fighting and there was crying, which pretty much makes you guys horrible people. So I was like, wow, that's like the sweetest customer review we've ever gotten. And he was calling us terrible, terrible people. But yes. We have gotten lots of feedback from parents and teachers saying, hey, I can't pull my child away from this game, which we take to be a very good sign. At a lot of playtesting sessions, they were supposed to break for pizza and you can't convince the kid to go get pizza. That's good. End of class, they won't leave the computer. So that's a very good sign. We've seen kids fight over this, but if there's a way to capture those moments in a graph, that'd be great. Number of fights that broke out over Math Breakers. That would be an excellent metric. Yeah. Let's see. Anyone else? Do you have anything?

I do have water.

So when you're contacting, I guess, people from Stanford about How did you go about it? I was just trying to email this and it was like, should I just do a little search? Did you know anyone? Did you go through people in your network? We actually cold-called professors. Yeah, we just sent out an email. And I've done that not just in terms of getting feedback for Math Breakers, but for anything education-related. I would reach out to different professors like, hey, have you applied for this government I see that you've applied for this government grant before. I'm doing it with a math game. I know you're in humanities, but if I can learn something, let's do that. And even then, it's like a very— even when you're approaching them on something very tangentially related, I have never not gotten a warm response from a professor. I think they're all very passionate about helping. So yeah, don't be afraid to just shoot an email.

Yeah.

OK. All right, thanks, guys. And of course, I'll be here for a little bit.