Simcoach Games

Simcoach Games (formerly Etcetera edutainment^[1]) is a serious game development company based in Western Pennsylvania. It was founded in 2005 as a spin out from Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center. The company's video games are used primarily for training purposes and focus on driving behavior change through digital coaching and assessment. Simcoach's products are used by Fortune 500 companies across several industries including retail, healthcare, government, academia, and manufacturing with both clients and employees using the products.^[2]

Simcoach Games is headquartered in Pittsbugh, PA, in the Strip District neighborhood of the city.^[3]

Company History

After current CEO, Jessica Trybus, earned a Masters Degree in Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon, Donald Marinelli and Jessica started Etcetera edutainment. Their first employee was Eben Myers, the current VP of Design for the company. The company's first focus was on computer training simulations for the health care and manufacturing fields with University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Alcoa as their first clients.^[4]

From the success with Alcoa, Etcetera Edutainment began working on a custom game development engine called Crucible. Crucible played a major role in the company first fledged attempt on multi-player games. The first game developed was Alcoa Safe Dock. This game simulated the dozens of roles in a warehouse and allowed dozens of individuals to simulate those roles all in the same world, in an effort to simulate real warehouse conditions without any of the injury risk and at a significantly lower cost. Etcetera further used Crucible in developing Crowdplay, one of the first crowd play games that were popular in the late 2000s, especially at movie theaters and other public venues.

Since abandoning Crucible, the company utilizes the Unity game development engine for all of their projects.

In 2012, the company shifted focus once more with the development of their Simcoach framework. Simcoach is a coaching and assessment tool incorporated into games allowing the user to not only be trained in better means of performance, but also have a tangible means of assessing those same behaviors. This framework was first used in the Simcoach Cashier Safety game and the Simcoach Selector Safety game.^[5]

Etcetera Edutainment changed its name in 2014 to Simcoach Games with the intention to focus on developing games that are Simple, Interactive, and Measurable. Since 2014, Simcoach Games has worked with dozens of companies, government agencies, and organizations to develop a plethora of games, mostly mobile. A Few of these games include Robot Factory (developed in collaboration with Honeywell), Reinforcers, Excavator, and Traffic Control (developed in collaboration with the Constructors Association of Western Pennsylvania), BiblioTech (developed in collaboration with Dr. John Pollock from Duquesne University), and the JobPro series (developed in partnership with the Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board).^[6] The majority of their games can be found in the App Store (iOS), Google Play, and the Amazon Appstore.

Simcoach's latest development has been aimed towards creating the Simcoach Skill Arcade which is a mobile training platform that engages hourly workers with short, 2-3 minute video games. This on-demand training platform is available for free on all the app stores; users are only required to create a login using their email.

Games from Simcoach Games

Simcoach Games has developed dozens of games over its 11 years of existence including over 10 mobile apps for the App Store (iOS), Google Play, and the Amazon Appstore, most of which are free.

Partners and Clients^[7]

Simcoach Games have worked in numerous industries and has an extensive list of clients and partners.

• Development Dimensions International (DDI)
• Dr. John Pollock, Duquesne University
• Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board
• Constructors Association of Western Pennsylvania
• Honeywell
• UPMC Health Plan
• Allegheny Health Network
• Giant Eagle
• Wegmans
• Whole Foods Market
• Schnucks
• Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry
• International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
• Alcoa
• U.S. Steel
• Indiana University of Pennsylvania
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration

Simcoach Skill Arcade

The Simcoach Skill Arcade is a mobile workforce training platform.

The Simcoach Skill Arcade is Simcoach's most recent project and it is aimed at bringing engaging, consistent and practical game-based learning to the workforce through the use of mobile devices.^[8] By utilizing mobile devices in training, employees can take a few minutes during slow periods at work or just before or after a break to freshen up on skills that are essential to their jobs.

The Skill Arcade is in its early stages of development but it is available for free from all the app stores and includes the food safety basics Skill Set. Eventually the Simcoach Skill Arcade will be filled with numerous Skill Sets that employees will be able to play to diversify their own skill sets to become more well rounded and valuable members to their team.

Simcoach Games is developing the Skill Arcade because of a teaching trend that is taking over the nation, the use of badges in schools as a form of acknowledgement not only in the classroom but for extracurricular activities as well. Simcoach Games is focusing on the workforce side of this trend and already is using the idea of badging in many of its games.

Awards and Recognition

Simcoach Games and its team have been recognized for several awards and honors for the work they do across multiple industries.

Carnegie Mellon Connections

Simcoach Games benefited greatly from its connections with Carnegie Mellon University early on. A majority of Simcoach's employees have graduated from the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC). Simcoach's CEO, Jessica Trybus, and Vice President, Eben Myers, both continually are involved with the school as an Associate Professor of Entertainment Technology and respected and sought after field expert, respectively.

Simcoach Games appears frequently at Carnegie Mellon events and is a constant supporter and sponsor for the ETC.

References

External links

• www.simcoachgames.com Homepage for Simcoach Games