How Frustration in School Sparked Skillsmith Studios’ Game-Based Learning Revolution

My Early Academic Success—and Sudden Drop

When I was young, I excelled in school. I was in gifted and talented programs, got straight As, and placed in the top 5% on standardized testing. I was incredibly interested in school and excited about learning, until that all changed at around the age of 13. My attention span essentially disappeared, interest in learning evaporated, and motivation to study or do homework was at zero. All I really felt motivation to do at that point in my life was play video games.

A New Record

I may hold the record for the lowest recorded GPA in my high school for my freshman year. I managed to go from gifted and talented programs with straight As to a 0.5 GPA.. I had less than a D average, but because I had been in advanced classes, I was able to fail courses without having to repeat grades. This essentially meant about 2 years of no effort with no real consequences other than dealing with my own parents’ disappointment and nagging. Well, I suppose the teachers did the same. I constantly heard that I was “too smart” to be doing so poorly, that I was wasting my intellect, and that I was a failure.

Reclaiming Motivation Through Strategy

My junior year, I found a hint of motivation. I began to develop my own strategies and study habits. I also realized that my parents were actually pretty keen to let me play all of the video games I wanted and remain fairly independent as long as my grades were up. This became an incredibly powerful motivator for me.

I would work on that day’s homework while partially paying attention to class lectures when I could. This actually helped me learn faster, because I would get through everything I could on my own, and quickly identify what I needed help with while the class was still occurring. Some teachers weren’t receptive to this style and demanded I pay attention, but I didn’t really care. My grades were where I wanted them to be, and that was all I needed.

This evolved in my senior year, and I challenged myself to take several AP courses. I even hosted a study group for my calculus class to help others who were struggling. I didn’t manage straight As, but I did manage to pass my classes and score highly enough to get college credit. It felt good to be doing well, but it felt exponentially better to be helping others. I didn’t really think much more of it at the time, but that feeling has stuck with me since.

I had realized:

• Incentives matter: My parents let me game an unlimited amount if my grades stayed high

• Active learning works: I’d work ahead on homework and use class time for targeted questions

• Peer teaching ignites passion: Leading my own calc study group was more rewarding than any grade

From Finance to I/O Psychology to Consulting

Even with my improved grades, my final GPA upon graduating was still only about a 2.5. Not nearly enough to get into any good universities even with my high test scores. I still didn’t really know exactly what I wanted to do with my life, so I enrolled in a local community college.

College proved to be a unique challenge. I found that my motivation systems no longer were serving me in the same way. Perhaps it was partially because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, and so I didn’t really see the point. Even though I did well my last two years of high school, ultimately I still hated school. 

It wasn’t until I randomly stumbled my way into a personal finance class that I found a spark of motivation again. Suddenly I was incredibly interested in what I was learning. This motivation carried me through the rest of my time in community college with a good enough GPA to get into a state school where I finished my finance degree and became an accountant at a real estate firm. Objectively this was a success. I had effectively turned my life around. 

About a year into my accounting role, I discovered a field called industrial/organizational psychology. I’d always been interested in psychology and the thought of being able to combine my newly acquired business knowledge with my interest in people and how they operate fascinated me. So I decided to get a master’s degree and found that this was probably going to be my last experience in the traditional education system. Even though the content was interesting and I was passionate about the topic. I just couldn’t operate in that environment. I got good grades, and I passed—but I didn’t thrive. I absolutely could have learned more in an environment that was more tailored to my learning style. 

Halfway through this program, I made a career change to management consulting. This was the first time as an adult that I finally felt my environment was actually a match for my working and learning style. I had always new projects on the horizon, I was making an impact and getting almost instant feedback, and I was getting high performance ratings. Through discussions with many of my colleagues, I learned that it was very uncommon for people like me to end up working in this field for such a large company. I found this strange given how well set up I was to succeed in it and set out to learn more about the problem.

The Birth of Skillsmith Studios

After countless hours of research and deep thinking, I was faced with the problem that, on some level, I had always felt to be true. Our systems are built for the average person, but many bright and talented people simply are not a match for it. They often become discouraged, and their potential never reached.

I was not alone. Many might be relieved by such a realization, but I was crushed. I could live with the fact that I struggled to succeed in the current system, but knowing that this was impacting as many as 10%* of kids and adults was a gut punch. I knew immediately that I had to do something about this.

I started brainstorming ideas, and I spent the next two years building them out and discussing them with people I trust. I arrived at the solution of video games that teach real skills. Virtually everyone can be engaged and focused on a video game, and with entertainment becoming more and more rewarding to our brains, this is only becoming more true. So why not build games that bring real skills into the gameplay?

Many of us have played educational games before, and usually, they simply aren’t that fun. They’re effective at teaching the skills, but without the ability to hold our attention and interest, we often don’t play them long enough to develop anything all that useful. This is what we do differently. We build video games that would actually be fun on their own, with an educational component woven into them.

I’m excited to embark on this journey. I don’t know where it will lead, but I hope we can make a difference to all those who have struggled to learn in traditional environments. I hope we can help make learning fun.

*Rounded up from 2% (Atherton & Cross, 2021) + 7.2% (Caselles, et. al, 2023) to include undiagnosed individuals and other potential causes who may struggle in the traditional learning environment.

Sources

Atherton G, Cross L. The Use of Analog and Digital Games for Autism Interventions. Front Psychol. 2021 Aug 9;12:669734. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.669734. PMID: 34447328; PMCID: PMC8384560.

Caselles-Pina L, Sújar A, Quesada-López A, Delgado-Gómez D. Adherence, frequency, and long-term follow-up of video game-based treatments in patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A systematic review. Brain Behav. 2023 Nov;13(11):e3265. doi: 10.1002/brb3.3265. Epub 2023 Sep 24. PMID: 37743605; PMCID: PMC10636395.