204: Revolutionizing the Learning Industry thru Gaming… Stephen Baer of The Game Agency

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Background on Stephen Baer of The Game Agency:

Since launching The Game Agency 13 years ago and The Training Arcade 3 years ago, Stephen Baer has developed award-winning games for new-employee on-boarding, sales and product training, leadership development, safety, security, compliance, systems & processes, customer service, and many other training topics. He has also helped shape the education industry and disrupt traditional learning methods with the creation of interactive games such as S.T.E.M, Financial Literacy and Social Skills which have been deployed in thousands of schools. Stephen creates games to educate and activate audiences.

The Game Agency develops games to make education, corporate training, and consumer marketing more fun and effective. They are a software development company focused on building game-based solutions that complement company's eLearning, mLearning, and instructor led training needs. They offer turnkey games through The Training Arcade, a do-it-yourself game authoring tool. They also have a deep portfolio of custom game development. All of their games provide a practice playground for learners to connect better with training content as well as rich data for trainers to measure the effectiveness of their initiative.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

  • [1:32]: Stephen Baer lives in Westchester, NY, and runs a company called The Game Agency, which started in 2007.
  • [3:25] The games they create are meant for educational purposes but with an arcade concept that makes learning more fun.
  • [6:02] The Training Arcade is the main product of The Game Agency. It is a tool that allows you to create games in minutes.
  • [10:10] The company is composed of 50 people and they have exceeded the $10 million mark in 2020.
  • [14:58] Stephen went to Oberlin College in Ohio, which he describes as a very liberal and progressive school. After graduating, he worked for an advertising company and PR firm that became a great learning ground for him.
  • [19:01] Taking up an Executive MBA Program at Columbia Business School, Stephen felt like he was an odd fit in the group.
  • [24:13] Being an executive in a large company was not what Stephen wanted.
  • [28:40] After leaving General Electric, he took a job as a Director of Marketing at Atari.
  • [32:25] Working in Atari gave Stephen the opportunity to make well-known brands involved in the gaming industry.
  • [34:44] Stephen provides an example of a popular brand collaborating with the Atari video games.
  • [37:45] There were several reasons why Stephen had to leave Atari to create his own gaming company.
  • [41:18] In-game advertising and doing custom games were the early focus of Stephen’s company.
  • [42:50] Stephen talks about the first few months of running The Training Arcade.
  • [46:33] Building good relationships with people has been the common theme in Stephen’s entrepreneurial career.

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Fabulous 4 Questions:

  1. 📖📚 Favorite Books? Shel Silverstein Poetry by Shel Silverstein
  2. 🙌😎 Favorite Amazon.com purchase? Wooden Toy Train Sets
  3. 🌱💸 Favorite Tool that's GROWN your Business? PowerPoint
  4. 💭💡 BIGGEST Challenge keeping your Business from GROWING? The Training Arcade is an amazing tool but today 99% of our users are in the corporate space. I want to penetrate the EDU market like Kahoot and Quizlet have. Our product has way more bells and whistles than they do and this year I want to figure out how we partner with or compete with them in a meaningful way.

Key Point from the Interview:

  • “The people I went to school with, business school, naturally led to opportunities. Just as long as you kinda keep those doors open and those conversations flowing, you never know what’s gonna pop up.”

Resources Mentioned:

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