Games-Based Learning about Entrepreneurship and Social Responsibility in Real Estate Development in China

1. Let’s Be a Real Estate Entrepreneur!
Games-Based Learning about Entrepreneurship
and Social Responsibility in Real Estate
Development in China
Design Research conducted by the
MIT Game Lab & Scheller Teacher Education Program for the
Samuel Tak Lee MIT Real Estate Entrepreneurship Lab

2. Play

5. Learning

8. Four Freedoms of Play
• Freedom to Explore
• Freedom to Fail
• Freedom of Identity
• Freedom of Effort

10. GAMES
How do we channel play into meaningful activities while still
allowing for play’s open-ended nature?

11. In games we willingly submit to arbitrary
rules and structures in pursuit of
mastery, but only if we can continue to
be playful.

12. “What the world needs is…
Grand Theft Calculus

17. Imaginative Projection

18. Play
Spectation Competition
Collaboration

19. Let’s Be a Real Estate
Entrepreneur!

20. Role Taking
Real Estate Developer
City Planner
Entrepreneur

21. Risks vs Rewards
The Chinese system of real estate
development is an exciting way to operate
as an entrepreneur within the Chinese
economy!
Players will take risks: will they cause
another Tianjin disaster? Will they become
a rising star in the real estate development
scene?
By building responsibly or recklessly,
players will see the long term results of
their short term decisions. Players will ask
themselves: “Is it desirable to develop in a
socially responsible way?”

22. Systems at Play
Illustrating these important systems at play via the
costs and rewards for each:
• reputation - getting access to bigger markets/
repeat customers, more opportunities; getting
blamed for disasters, restrictions from failures
• risk-taking - cutting corners, exploiting regulation,
causing disaster, profiting from windfalls
• raising capital and managing land use - the
specifics of acquiring capital and developing land
• societal benefit - happiness, community,
developing the area to become more profitable/
livable
• environmental impact - reducing footprint and
waste to increase profitability/livability

23. Learning Context
• Classroom Experience
• Short amount of playtime (60-90
minute sessions)
• Takes time to master

24. Other Design Constraints
• Multi-player game
• Tablet-based board game
adaptation
• Complex system
• Not a 1:1 simulation of ‘reality’

25. Play
Spectation Competition
Collaboration
Interrogating the System
Sharing Strategy
Reflection
&
Analysis
Testing Strategy

26. What We’ll Need From You
• COUHES Training (online training) because of our IRB requirements
• Packaging and delivering data for us in a legible format
• Make sure the students understand that they are in charge of their
gameplay
• They might not like the game — that’s okay!
• They might think the game is ‘wrong’ — they’re right, it is!

27. Summer Test Protocol
• What are the strengths of the real estate game as part of a curriculum?
• Does it aid students in defining thoughtful or socially responsible
development?
• Does it create interest in the real estate field?
• Does it encourage relevant discussions?
• Is its simulation sufficient to engage students?
• Are students able to draw analogies between the game and real life
developments?

28. Test Methods
• Observation
• Monitoring discussions - keying
discussion with specific questions & topics.
• Written Reflections - one paragraph
summary of answer to a specific question,
one to three times throughout the course to
see how their answers shift.
• Surveys - at start of class, mid point, end of
class - ideally not more than 10 minutes for
students to fill out.
• (Possibly) Analyzing games created by the
students to adapt/alter the original game.