What readers are saying about
Digital Game-Based Learning:

"An indispensable resource for its cutting-edge research… "refreshingly pragmatic. " - Michael Schrage, Professor, MIT Media Lab, in strategy+business, August 2001

"A wonderful and thought-provoking book. Prensky's book is full of great information for anyone who is thinking of developing games to train their staff. It is chock full of great examples, great games and great strategies...Highly recomended." - David Strom, consultant and Editor, Web Informant

"This is a breakthrough book... Marc Prensky has written a must read book for our field!" - Elliott Masie, The MASIE Center, Editor, TRENDS e-Letter and Learning Decisions

"The book is a must read." - Randy Hinrichs, Microsoft Research

"Extremely interesting." - Donald Norman, President, Unext

"Marc Prensky may have set out to write a great book about digital game-based learning programs, but he ended up writing a great book about the social anthropology of learning and the future of the workplace. ... The meat of this book [is] how learners have changed and why education and training have not. Every corporate trainer and schoolteacher in America, if not the world, should take a break right now and devour these fascinating and disturbing 50 pages." - Skip Corsini in Training Magazine, May 2001

"A ‘must read’ for business managers and HR directors as well." - Mark Bieler, EVP, Human Resources, Bankers Trust Company (1989-1999)

"Marc Prensky's book is a great introduction to this subject." - Don Tapscott, Chair of itemus inc. and co-author of Digital Capital: Harnessing the Power of Business Webs.

"Consider this Prensky's wake-up call to the training profession…I consider this book to be a powerful tool. " - Deanne Bryce in T+D (Training & Development), June 2001

"Marc Prensky’s prescient book tells us how to get there from here." - Don Johnson, Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Pentagon

"The book is excellent -- well researched and beautifully written. A mustread for every education and training professional". - Sharon Sloane, President and CEO, Will Interactive, Inc.

"Very well done and quite informative." - Barbara "Bobbi" Kurshan, EVP and Chief Education Officer, bigchalk.com

"There is so much here. It is worth the read just for all of the fabulous quotes Prensky has collected! This book will frustrate many current eLearners, support eLearning implementors, vindicate many gamers, challenge eLearning developers, and anger current traditional educators down to high school teachers. Well written and researched." - Clark Aldrich, former analyst, Gartner, Inc.

"Scholarly yet remarkably readable. If you are in any way interested in gaming and training -- or if you're just interested in where training is going to be headed in the next 10-20 years -- you should very definitely read this one … His book makes a fabulous and scholarly but remarkably readable case for the confluence of gaming and training in the years to come. And Prensky has managed to make it interactive by tying in a Web site... ...and actually incorporating contests and games into the text of the book. He practices what he preaches." - Miriam Lawrence, Horsesmouth.com

"It gave me many hours of great enjoyment… a very strong case for why game-based learning will see strong growth in the future. I also enjoyed all the examples sprinkled throughout the book -- they helped make it all come alive." - Eilif Trondsen, SRI Consulting

"The book is already beginning to have an impact on the mindset around here." - Paul Trapp, Pfizer

"The book shed light on things I suspected, but never heard anyone talk about." - Julie Jordan, Instructional Designer

"A terrific read! The book is an important entry into the canon of literature on digital media, education and technology, and corporate training." - Luyen Chou. CEO. Learn Technologies Interactive, Inc.

"This book really fired my imagination with the potential for using games as a way of imparting educational material. What made it all the more interesting was reading about those organisations who had already successfully taken this route. Loads of examples and links to game designers. This book is a "must-read" for anyone involved or interested in creating engaging, interactive elearning." - Karan Douglas, Citibank (posted on Amazon.com)

"Digital Game-Based Learning is not just pie-in-the-sky talk about what companies can gain from training disguised as a game. Author Marc Prensky talks dollar amounts and tells how to convince management of the value and get the bucks to do it. ... The book also explores the games-as-learning-tools experience of 41 companies, including PricewaterhouseCoopers, Burger King Corp., 3M Co., H&R Block Inc., Scandinavian Airlines Systems, Holiday Inn, and Cummins Engine Co." - Bureau of National Affairs' Workforce Strategies, Jan 29,2001

"[The] writing is among the most lucid and persuasive in this field." - Alison Andrews, researcher at Interval Research, Discovery Channel, Usable Products, and Organic

"Marc's done a superb job of surveying organizational applications of game approaches to learning. His points of view are a wake-up call to corporate America, and well worth reading. Let's hope that the outcome is a much-needed move to more engaging and effective learning." " - Clark Quinn, Learning Designer

"This book is a timely, perception description of the value of gaming and the potential of the net. … Mr. Prensky's book points to the future with promises and warnings supported by a rich amount of research, as demonstrated by his footnotes and bibliography. …This a wonderful eye opener for those that have underestimated gaming (play) and its importance to learning. …Each chapter is thoughtfully laid out with interesting examples/case studies and methodically introduces a group of concepts then builds to a thoughtful and often unpredictable conclusion….The book is rich with facts and statistics - some of them, while revealing the potential in redirecting gaming, are still frightening. … Finally a book both gamers and game designers can love, students can share, parents and kids can discuss and left and right brains can savor." - John Nordlinger, Microsoft Research, posted on Amazon.com

Rich, Insightful Guide to E-Learning Games: When you set out to tell all about e-learning games, it helps to have a broad background. Harvard MBA Marc Prensky has been a professional musician, high school teacher, business consultant, corporate trainer, and creator of dozens of software e-learning games. He is now CEO of a game company. He brings to the subject an intense love that enables him to find value even in flawed efforts in this fledgling field, yet he retains the critical capacity and balanced judgment that are the hallmarks of credibility. The book provides a provocative analysis of how widespread playing of video and computer games has created a new under-35 Games Generation that sees the world through radically different eyes than their parents, who can be at best "digital immigrants." Simply transferring tell-test and "sage on the stage" teaching methods to digital media, as many e-learning companies have done, misses the point, he explains. We need to exploit the opportunities to develop new, more engaging approaches--and that primarily means games. People will learn the most technical or boring subjects if presented as part of compelling, fun games. Prensky offers scores of case studies and war stories from practitioners in the corporate trenches. He ranges from simple quiz games to intensive virtual reality simulations, showing that often simple is better, that not only the type of learner but also the kind of subject/skill to be mastered should determine the approach, and that games possess inherent advantages over simulations. He laughs at the outrageous scenarios players deliberately generate in customer relationship games. He notes with respect the capacity of deep simulations and games to draw upon the insights of communities of experts worldwide to generate cutting-edge research results that can then be parlayed into real-world management systems. And he states six objections to e-learning games, then proceeds to blow them to bits like so many villains in a shooter game. In the book are many practical suggestions for getting an e-learning game project approved and funded as well as for how to bring it into reality. Of special value are its list of state-of-the-art games in various categories and its articulation of the advantages of each type. … In conclusion, e-learning games are a dynamic field that is wide open to creative initiative and promises major long-term benefits. Prensky's book is a rich, insightful guide and makes absorbing reading." - Kenneth J. Dillon, Washington D.C. (Posted on Amazon.com)