Breaking Down Barriers: Why COTS Games Often Work Better for Skill Development in Real Classrooms

Link to the original article - https://ijet.itd.cnr.it/index.php/td/article/view/1502/1275

The editorial by Passarelli, Andreoletti, Silva, and Arnab does something I appreciate by acknowledging the challenges. They call out teacher training gaps, practical constraints, and implementation difficulties. But then the six studies they feature? Five of them focus on purpose-built serious games and gamification systems.

Serious games matter, and many show strong results in the right conditions. My position is not anti–serious games. It is pro‑feasibility. In most real classrooms, COTS games create a faster, easier path to the same skill outcomes.

In my view, they describe the barriers well, but many of the solutions highlighted can unintentionally heighten those barriers in typical learning contexts.

Where Serious Games Struggle in Practice

Let me break down what the editorial showcases:

• COSMO HUNTERS: Custom card game for electromagnetic spectrum learning

• YO-MEDIA: Three separate games (two board games, one video game) for media literacy

• Elli's World: Purpose-built video game for reading comprehension

• Basketball Physics Challenge: Gamified physics learning environment

• Biofeedback games: Specialized technology for emotional regulation

These are impressive research projects. They required teams, funding, development time, and specialized expertise. And that's exactly why they don't scale.

The editorial mentions that "practical constraints in terms of time, learning spaces, and school resources can make teachers apprehensive about trying GBL approaches." Then they showcase solutions that require even more time, space, and resources to implement.

Only one study looked at a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) game: the Minecraft review. And it's the one game that's actually being adopted across classrooms worldwide.

Minecraft Lake House - Wix Stock Photos

The Teacher Training Barrier

The authors acknowledge that "using games as learning tools requires careful design of the educational activity as well as familiarity with the medium of games." They note "relatively low acceptance among Italian teachers" and emphasize that "without teacher training and robust assessment frameworks, the potential benefits of such educational interventions often go unrealized."

But none of the featured studies solve this problem.

Purpose-built serious games don't reduce the teacher training burden, they increase it. Every new game is a new system to learn, new mechanics to understand, new activities to design around. It's like asking teachers to become expert facilitators of six different board games they've never played, or navigate educational software with custom interfaces and learning curves.

Meanwhile, COTS games like Minecraft, Portal 2, or Overcooked? Teachers and students already know them. The cultural familiarity is built in. The engagement is proven. The mechanics are polished by million-dollar studios and the interfaces (for the most part) are similar if not exactly the same.

Where COTS Games Win

When I work with educators through Rift Education, I don't ask them to learn new systems. I ask them to look at games their learners already play through a different lens.

COTS games solve the implementation challenges that serious games create:

1. No development cost: The game already exists and is professionally maintained

2. Reduced training: Learners may know. If not, the game itself will teach them how to play

3. Built-in engagement: Commercial games are designed to be compelling because their business model depends on it

4. Transferable skills: Players develop competencies they can apply across contexts, not just within one custom game

5. Accessibility: Most COTS games have robust accessibility features that serious games can't afford to build

The editorial talks about fostering "creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving." You know what does that brilliantly? Portal 2's co-op mode.

Overcooked's kitchen chaos. Minecraft's open-world building. These games weren't designed for education, but their mechanics naturally create the learning conditions we want. Most of the popular choices for novel studies back in my day weren’t written by educators either. We still used them.

The Practitioner's Perspective

What frustrates me about research like this is that it acknowledges every real barrier teachers face, then proposes solutions that don’t address those barriers.

Most people (trainers or educators) don't have time to integrate seven different custom games into their curriculum. They don't have budget for specialized software. They don't have space for elaborate game-based interventions. They do have learners who play games (for the most part), spaces with some technology access, and learning objectives that need to be met.

My methodology isn't complicated:

1. Identify the learning outcome

2. Find a COTS game with mechanics that naturally support that outcome

3. Design a simple scaffolding activity (usually 30-60 minutes)

4. Facilitate, observe, and debrief

That's it. No custom development. No specialized training. No massive resource investment.

What the Research Missed

The editorial closes by encouraging people to "further experiment with both analog and digital games, collaborate closely with researchers to measure impact, and share best practices."

But it doesn't address the fundamental question: How do we make this practical for actual teachers or trainers in actual classrooms or businesses?

The answer isn't more serious games. It's teaching folks to see the learning potential in games that already exist. It's building a practitioner community around COTS implementation. It's creating lightweight scaffolding frameworks instead of heavyweight custom solutions.

Moving Forward

I appreciate what Passarelli and colleagues are trying to do with this special issue. They're expanding the conversation beyond just digital games. They're acknowledging implementation challenges. They're thinking about facilitator needs.

But until the research community starts focusing on solutions that work within constraints and not despite them, we'll keep seeing the same pattern. We’ll see impressive studies, acknowledged barriers, and low real-world adoption.

COTS games aren't perfect. But they're practical. And more often than not, practical beats perfect.

Want to see how COTS games can work in your classroom or training program? I help educators and L&D professionals design game-based learning experiences using commercial games. Book a free discovery consultation to explore what's possible.