Why L&D Should Borrow From Game Night
Corporate training has a participation problem. Even the most thoughtfully designed workshops struggle to keep employees engaged long enough to absorb, let alone apply, the content. Yet at the same time, people will happily spend hours tackling strategy, puzzles, and story-driven challenges in games. That’s the gap applied games are built to close. Unlike gamification, which adds points, badges, and superficial competition to existing content, applied games leverage complete game experiences to teach skills, explore scenarios, and drive behavior change.
The powerful twist for corporate learning is this: you don’t need to build custom games from scratch. Many existing games, including board games, simulations, and even commercially available digital titles, can be adapted to achieve specific learning outcomes at a fraction of the cost.
What Are Applied Games?
Applied games are games used intentionally for instruction, capability development, and skill practice; not entertainment for its own sake. They work because gameplay demands decision-making and problem-solving rather than passive listening. Players get instant feedback through game consequences; teams naturally collaborate, communicate, and negotiate; and games create a safe space for failure, experimentation, and iterative learning. This puts learners in an active role and keeps them engaged long enough to practice, fail safely, and improve.
Why Use Existing Games In Corporate Training
Custom-designed serious games are fantastic but expensive. You can often achieve most of the impact using games already on the market, adapted to your context.
Cost-Effective
Board games cost $20-50. Role-playing simulations are free. Digital games often offer group or bulk licenses. Compared to six-figure development budgets, using existing games is a pragmatic on-ramp into experiential learning.
High Engagement And Motivation
Games activate intrinsic motivation, curiosity, mastery, challenge, and competition, without forcing enthusiasm. For example, Tesco created a compliance board game for onboarding and saw retention and engagement rise while complaints were reduced. The content didn’t change; the delivery did.
Practice Without Stakes
A failed pitch in a role-playing game costs nothing. A poor decision in a simulation becomes a chance to iterate rather than become a coaching problem. Games allow “real-world” practice without real-world consequences.
Built-In Soft Skill Development
Most workplaces need better communication, collaboration, negotiation, critical thinking, and creativity. Games create opportunities where learners must use these skills naturally.
How To Adapt An Existing Game For L&D
Dropping a game on a table will not magically produce learning outcomes. Here is a structured way to adapt games thoughtfully.
1. Lock In Your Learning Outcome
Start by determining what participants must know, do, or feel differently afterward. This dictates which game mechanics or themes fit best.
2. Pick A Game That Aligns
Choose a game whose mechanics reflect your target skill. Trade and resource games support negotiation. Cooperative games often require communication. Puzzle and strategy games reinforce planning and systems thinking. If the theme or rules don’t match perfectly, modify or reskin the game; swap cards, adjust rules, or add organization-relevant content.
3. Facilitate The Experience
Provide enough instruction to play, then step back. Observe behavior, choices, and communication. Let the game surface strengths and challenges instead of teaching directly.
4. Debrief: It’s The Real Work
The debrief is where the learning crystallizes. Ask participants how they made decisions, where communication broke down, what strategies worked, and how the experience relates to real-world challenges. Without debriefing, most of the learning is lost.
5. Reinforce And Reuse
Convert insights into ongoing practice. Managers can reference lessons in coaching, add follow-up scenarios, or return to the game periodically to measure progress.
Common Pitfalls And How To Avoid Them
Games can derail learning if you skip the fundamentals.
- The game overtakes the learning goal
Restate objectives before, during, and after. - Leaders dismiss play as childish
Run a pilot with respected staff and let outcomes speak for themselves. - Learners don’t buy in
Explain relevance up front. - Debriefs are skipped
If your session is one hour, dedicate half to reflection.
The Bottom Line
Applied games democratize experiential learning. They unlock engagement, strengthen retention, enable safe practice, and tap into social dynamics that traditional training overlooks. Corporate learning fails when it lives in slide decks instead of lived experiences. Games put learning back in motion; decision-making, collaboration, and rapid feedback in a controlled environment. If you want employees who think better together, give them structured environments where they can practice thinking better together. A well-chosen game can do that tomorrow.
