Real Things in Virtual Worlds. Education.

In times of economic crisis, western society has a great chance of getting back to reality. 

Real things should recover their true value. Brands, trends, bonds, options, futures and glamour are virtual. All of these are not bad, but things just get wrong when virtual things become more important than real ones and replace them completely, like it happened in financial sector. 

Getting back to reality. This is what crisis came for.

Virtual worlds may be useful, unless they start replacing real world for your kid. Otherwise, there will be some sort of crisis. I do share worries of Oscar-winning film-maker Lord Puttam.

Education in Virtual Worlds

The latest trend in kids virtual worlds marketing is approaching parents and making them inviting kids to a virtual space. And the smartest way to do it is telling that a virtual world is an educational one, so parents spend money easier. 

Can virtual worlds be efficient educational platform? 

Learn by playing is one of the most efficient learning concepts ever. In Ukraine, centuries ago, Cossacks trained their children fighting skills through learning games. This concept works so great simply because of passion. Whenever it is business or education, if you do it with passion - you achieve the best results. Therefore, games are needed to generate kid's passion to education. And that should be the main goal of any game or virtual world calling itself educational. And the first impression is that virtual worlds fit perfectly for this task.

 

But let us look what multi-million investment educational virtual worlds have to offer:

- chat and social features

- 90% of games bought from 3rd parties or cloned from popular gameplays

- 10% of educational games and features

I do not have any stats on how kids spend their time in educational virtual worlds, but I am more than sure that using educational part takes less than 5%. It happens, because virtual worlds are about communication and fun. And the worst thing  is when educational part is designed to be used only to earn more virtual money or goods and not because it is fun. It only convinces kids that education is boring.

In such a case, it is not about education. It is a marketing feature for parents. Such approach will not generate any passion to education or hunger to learning new things in kids mind.

 

How we do it in Chobots

First of all, we have a conceptual setting where kids play as aliens who have to research the Earth. Nowadays, we started development of a small 3D Cartoon which will explain why it is so important for Chobots. 

This creates a common sense for the whole game and also atmosphere demanding constant research and learning new things. This is supported with constantly updated "Latest Earth Researches" laboratory, telescope and games design.

Secondly, we do not even say our world is educational.

For Russian market, we are going to add English learning games, but we honestly say that it is done to attract kids to learning English. It is impossible to learn English on a level within a virtual world. Our challenge was creating not a marketing feature, but creation of English learning games which are even more interesting than typical online games. So kids start playing them just because it's fun. Together with necessity to communicate in International environment this creates great motivation to start learning English. 

The biggest part of our world consists of exclusive multiplayer games and each second multiplayer game is a game for a team, where players have to achieve a common goal or compete with another team.

It was a complex technological and usability challenge we accomplished successfully. Multiplayer games is our main tool to attract kids and also to make them socialize, and to train collaborative skills. This is what virtual worlds and online games can do great.

Later on, we plan to add more quests, missions and facts about our planet, economics, humans and success. 

Short Summary

Real education in virtual worlds? I think that's another virtual myth.

Generating passion to learning new things? That's a real thing we do in Chobots.

Do you think virtual worlds are good for kids?

When I announced the date of public version of Chobots at the LinkedIn, I was asked if virtual worlds are good for kids?

My answer was immediate. This way I realized that this question was not new to me. As a father, I am not happy how gaming and TV influences kids, so I had all pros. and cons. considered before I decided to create a system for kids.

My answer was that I don't think it's smart to keep children away from TV, PC, Internet or real life. Instead, I believe that children have to learn how to use it right. And the sooner, the better. 
And that's why I think Chobots is a unique system. I designed Chobots.com as a family game, where children and parents can play together. No, it's not possible at just one PC, but the system is not demanding to hardware, because runs in the browser, so any second PC will work fine. Plus, you can play together with your child through Internet even if you are on the business trip or in the office.

Chobots is not about education, but it is about training the skills children will need in real life, such as team work, logic, communication and others. The system does not have any violence, but it has a lot of action that boys and girls will like.
And of course, safety is one of the most important things for me. I am disappointed about the fact, how many resources should be spent on safety, instead of new features, because there are so many psycho-predators around. But in addition to standard technological safety features, we will invest a lot in live moderation, so freaks will be kicked out immediately.

So my answer is YES! Chobots World is good for kids. You are welcome to become a Chobots Family.

Vadim Yeremeychuk

Importance of collaboration (Chapter # 1)

The key moment of the success in modern society is an ability to act in team. CHOBOTS world gives your children understanding of collaboration via multiplayer games.

Example – the game Mission Farm

The purpose of the game is to get the milk. But there is no refrigerator neither store. The task is more complicated – to cultivate the land, to grow the grass, not to let angry Nichos to take your product away, to feed the caw, to wait till the reservoir is full and only after all that you can go and take a bucket for the milk. Mission completed!

Of course, it is possible to do all the steps yourself, but in that case the process will take a lot of time and will be inefficient. Players can success only by working together. But the greatest success comes when collaboration is effectual!

The most necessary thing for team work is data exchange, in other words - communication between participants. So you can be sure that your child is improving communication skill, ability to reach understanding and achieve constructive cooperation. This is something that is necessary in everyday life.

Chobots Introduction

Chobots are cheerful aliens exploring the Earth and standing against angry Nichos! 

Play collaborative missions and quests! 

Dress up your Chobot and design your home! 

Adopt a pet that you designed, make friends and have a party! 

Parents friendly. Live Moderation. Register for free! 

Vayersoft Debuts Chobots

This is how it was mentioned in the press-release of VirtualWolrds Expo. It was the first time I was exhibiting personally and I must say it was not easy! Organization of the exhibition in Los Angeles was great, but at the end of the first day I was so tired that I explained to visitors something about multi-payments and micro-user system :) In such moments, Yaroslav Lazor helped me a lot, so we collected more than 80 business cards from investors, media, potential technology partners and even from competitors.

Also, we tested a "family play" concept and it was highly appreciated, so results of our beta-testing were confirmed. Chobots.com will be a family game first of all. I do expect we will be starting public beta on time. I wish you all the best and become a Chobot soon! ;)

Vadim Yeremeychuk

One Day Of Chobots Life!

Chobots.com - Your Family Game!

It comes in October 2008. 

Virtual world for kids and parents. Get Ready!