How to Choose a Serious Game Vendor: 8 Questions That Separate Good from Great

"The wrong question when buying a serious game is 'does this look impressive?' The right question is 'what specific behaviour does this change, and how do you know?'"

The serious games market in India is small enough that L&D buyers often have limited reference points for evaluation. There are very few organisations that have bought serious games programmes more than once, which means procurement teams are frequently making these decisions without the experience base that helps them separate effective interventions from expensive-looking novelties.

This guide gives you the eight questions that matter when evaluating a serious game vendor. They are written to surface the difference between a vendor who has built something genuinely effective and one who has built something that looks engaging but will not change how your leaders actually behave.

Question 1: Who designed the game, and who will run the session?

This is the single most revealing question. Many vendors who sell serious games did not design them. They licence games from a library, train facilitators to deliver them, and send those trained facilitators to run your session. The facilitator has learned how the game works. They have not built it, tested it across hundreds of iterations, made design decisions about which mechanics to include and why, or developed the specific debrief questions that connect what happens in the game to real workplace behaviour.

When the designer is not in the room, the debrief quality drops significantly. The debrief is where the learning lives. A facilitator who is running someone else's game can follow a debrief script. A designer running their own game can notice what specifically emerged in this session with these participants and draw on the full depth of their design intent to make the debrief genuinely insightful. These are not equivalent experiences.

The answer you want to hear: the person presenting the game to you designed it, and they personally run every session. If the vendor describes a network of trained facilitators, ask how many of them were involved in the design process and what that involvement looked like.

Question 2: What specific behaviour pattern is this game designed to surface?

A serious game should have a clear answer to this question. Not "leadership development" or "team cohesion" or "communication skills." Those are categories. The question is asking for specificity: what specific pattern of behaviour does this game create conditions to surface, and how does the game mechanic create those conditions?

A game designed to surface how leaders handle information asymmetry should be able to tell you exactly how the game mechanics create information asymmetry, what behaviour patterns typically emerge, and what the debrief questions help participants recognise about their own patterns. If the vendor describes the game's theme and the participant engagement without being able to name the specific behaviour it targets, that is a significant warning sign.

Question 3: Can you show me outcome data from past programmes?

Not case studies with positive quotes. Outcome data. NPS scores are a starting point, but they measure satisfaction with the experience, not behaviour change. More useful: what happened in the debrief? Did participants identify patterns they had not previously recognised? Were there observable changes in how participants behaved in subsequent sessions? Did any clients commission a second programme? Why?

The absence of outcome data is not necessarily a disqualifier. Serious game vendors are often early-stage and have not built rigorous measurement infrastructure. But the vendor should be able to tell you what they observe, what participants typically report, and what patterns have been consistent across multiple runs of the same game. If they have no observational data at all, they have not been paying attention in the right way.

Question 4: How does the debrief work?

Ask the vendor to walk you through a typical debrief for the game they are proposing. How long does it take? What questions are asked? How does the debrief connect what happened in the game to the participants' real workplace context? How does the facilitator handle participants who are reluctant to engage in reflection? What happens when the session produces unexpected dynamics?

The debrief is where the learning happens. A vendor who spends most of their pitch describing the game and relatively little time describing the debrief has their priorities reversed. Excellent game mechanics with a weak debrief produce an entertaining afternoon and very little lasting change. A well-designed debrief with a solid game produces the kind of insight that changes how participants operate the following week.

Question 5: What is the maximum and minimum group size, and why?

Serious games have real constraints on group size that are determined by the game mechanics. A game that works with 12 participants probably works differently with 40, and a vendor who says "we can run it with any group size" should explain how. If the group size changes significantly without a corresponding change in the game design, something is being compromised: either the quality of the social dynamics, the facilitator's ability to observe participants, or the depth of the debrief.

The answer you want to hear: a specific range with a clear explanation of why those are the limits, and an honest account of what changes at different sizes within that range.

Question 6: Is this game designed for our seniority level and context?

A game designed for middle managers navigating resource allocation in a manufacturing context will surface different patterns than the same game run with senior leaders in a technology company. The mechanics might be identical, but the participants' entry points, their professional context, and what the debrief needs to connect to are different.

Ask how the vendor adapts the game (or chooses between games) for different seniority levels, industries, and development challenges. A vendor with a single game who claims it works for everyone regardless of context is either oversimplifying or working with a very generic game that produces only generic insights. A vendor who can articulate specifically why a particular game is or is not right for your team's context is telling you something meaningful about how they approach design and fit.

Question 7: What happens after the session?

The session is one moment in a development journey. What does the vendor recommend for sustaining behaviour change after the game? Do they offer follow-up coaching? Do they provide participants with frameworks for recognising their patterns in real situations? Do they work with the client to design a measurement approach for 60 or 90 days post-session?

Vendors who have thought carefully about this question have thought carefully about the full theory of change, not just the experience design. Vendors who position the session as self-contained and complete have either limited design thinking about transfer, or are not confident enough in the session's lasting impact to encourage you to measure it.

Question 8: What would make this programme fail?

This question reveals intellectual honesty. A vendor who cannot name ways their programme can fail is either inexperienced or unwilling to be honest with you. Serious games depend on participant willingness to engage authentically, facilitation quality under specific session conditions, the right brief from the client, and the right match between game mechanics and development challenge. All of these can go wrong.

The answer you want to hear: specific, concrete conditions under which the programme would not work, combined with a clear account of how the vendor avoids those conditions and what they do when one of them appears unexpectedly. A vendor who hedges this question or gives a generic answer about "organisational culture" is not giving you useful information.

What the Right Answers Look Like

The vendor who can answer all eight of these questions specifically, confidently, and honestly is someone who has designed something rigorous and has delivered it enough times to understand both where it works and where it does not. That combination, design rigour plus delivery experience plus intellectual honesty, is what separates an effective serious game programme from an expensive novelty with an engaging pitch.

At Put The Player First, Arvindh Sundar designs every game and runs every session himself. If you ask any of the eight questions above, you will get a specific answer based on seven years of design and delivery experience. To start the conversation, get in touch or explore the games to see which might fit your team's challenge.