Let’s Be a Real Estate Entrepreneur! Games-Based Learning about Entrepreneurship

and Social Responsibility in Real Estate Development in China

Design Research conducted by the MIT Game Lab & Scheller Teacher Education Program for the

Samuel Tak Lee MIT Real Estate Entrepreneurship Lab

Play

Learning

Four Freedoms of Play

• Freedom to Explore • Freedom to Fail • Freedom of Identity • Freedom of Effort

GAMES

How do we channel play into meaningful activities while still allowing for play’s open-ended nature?

In games we willingly submit to arbitrary rules and structures in pursuit of

mastery, but only if we can continue to be playful.

“What the world needs is…Grand Theft Calculus

Imaginative Projection

Play

Spectation Competition

Collaboration

Let’s Be a Real Estate Entrepreneur!

Role TakingReal Estate Developer

City Planner Entrepreneur

Risks vs RewardsThe Chinese system of real estate development is an exciting way to operate as an entrepreneur within the Chinese economy!

Players will take risks: will they cause another Tianjin disaster? Will they become a rising star in the real estate development scene?

By building responsibly or recklessly, players will see the long term results of their short term decisions. Players will ask themselves: “Is it desirable to develop in a socially responsible way?”

Systems at PlayIllustrating these important systems at play via the costs and rewards for each:

• reputation - getting access to bigger markets/repeat customers, more opportunities; getting blamed for disasters, restrictions from failures

• risk-taking - cutting corners, exploiting regulation, causing disaster, profiting from windfalls

• raising capital and managing land use - the specifics of acquiring capital and developing land

• societal benefit - happiness, community, developing the area to become more profitable/livable

• environmental impact - reducing footprint and waste to increase profitability/livability

Learning Context

• Classroom Experience

• Short amount of playtime (60-90 minute sessions)

• Takes time to master

Other Design Constraints

• Multi-player game

• Tablet-based board game adaptation

• Complex system

• Not a 1:1 simulation of ‘reality’

Play

Spectation Competition

Collaboration

Interrogating the System

Sharing Strategy

Reflection &

AnalysisTesting Strategy

What We’ll Need From You• COUHES Training (online training) because of our IRB requirements

• Packaging and delivering data for us in a legible format

• Make sure the students understand that they are in charge of their gameplay

• They might not like the game — that’s okay!

• They might think the game is ‘wrong’ — they’re right, it is!

Summer Test Protocol• What are the strengths of the real estate game as part of a curriculum?

• Does it aid students in defining thoughtful or socially responsible development?

• Does it create interest in the real estate field?

• Does it encourage relevant discussions?

• Is its simulation sufficient to engage students?

• Are students able to draw analogies between the game and real life developments?

Test Methods• Observation

• Monitoring discussions - keying discussion with specific questions & topics.

• Written Reflections - one paragraph summary of answer to a specific question, one to three times throughout the course to see how their answers shift.

• Surveys - at start of class, mid point, end of class - ideally not more than 10 minutes for students to fill out.

• (Possibly) Analyzing games created by the students to adapt/alter the original game.