The Sauce is pleased to announce the imminent release of our own in-depth research report into the state of the seriously virtual game-like worlds marketplace.

The report involved interviewing 6 people – who we found on MyFarceBook – via email over a period of a Friday afternoon a few months ago. We have now analyzed the huge amount of data that we acquired and will probably release the full report at some point.

You will be able to buy the report for US$4,299 when it is released but in the mean time here are some teaser statistics:

[1] The benefit of games for learning

100% of the interviewees had played either Pac Man, Space Invaders or Pong at some point in their childhood and, when asked, reckoned that it was, as one respondent put it; “quite likely that computer games might be useful for learning….I suppose.”

[2] Pricing potential / market viability

98.5% of the respondents felt that clients would have to pay “at least some money” for seriously virtual game worlds in order for a sustainable market to exist. Examples were US$19.99 and US$18million as indicators of pricing variation.

100% of the respondents, who had a mean age of 48, reckoned that companies in this space needed to find at least 20 different terms for this space in order to confuse potential customers.

[3] Focus areas for serious games

87.665% of respondents felt that seriously virtual game-like 3D world developers needed to adopt a very heavy focus on military, healthcare, homeland security, disaster management, oil & gas, financial services, health & safety, history education, business skills, soft skills, hard skills and in-between skills (e.g. neither very hard nor very soft but rather a but ‘squidgy’).

The remaining 12.335% of respondents felt that a solid focus on role playing, strategy, business simulation, scenario simulation, driving, sexual health, prisoner rehabilitation, terminal illness management, university institution management simulations and fast food chain retail simulations was in order. Although nobody said as much it The Sauce also clearly identified that there was a feeling in people’s water that companies should focus on event management, exhibition planning, city planning, world war preparation, global economic crisis engineering and butterfly husbandry.

[4] Who should own the design of a serious game?

102% of respondents felt a seriously virtual 3D game world projects should be lead by the Instructional Game Simulation Psychology Educational Creative Financial Technical Subject Matter Expert Evangelist in order to ensure the creation of an effective and appropriate application to meet all stakeholder requirements.

[5] Market size & growth

The size of the market was unanimously predicted to grow from whatever the heck it is now to at least US$1.187 Trillion by 2027.

The Sauce is very proud of this unique body of research that we have concocted and look forward to sharing this with the rest of the community…for US$4,299.