What a serious game really is (and isn't)
A serious game is not a team-building exercise. It is not gamification. It is a designed scenario where real leadership behaviour comes out under pressure - and a structured debrief that makes that behaviour visible, names it, and connects it to what has to change at work on Monday.
Here is the difference that matters. A workshop tells your leaders what good looks like. A serious game creates the conditions where they show you what they actually do when it counts - and you cannot fake your way through a well-designed one. The game quietly surfaces the real decision-maker, the real collaborator, and the real person who goes silent the moment things get complicated.
That is also what makes the debrief different. I am not working from a slide deck. I watched what actually happened in the game, and I name it back to the group - specifically, and without spin.
Why imported games fall flat in Indian rooms
Most serious games used in India are imported - built for Western organisational cultures, running on the assumption that people will challenge authority, speak up freely, and admit mistakes in public. Those assumptions do not always hold here, especially in GCCs, family-run conglomerates, or heavily hierarchical sectors like pharma and BFSI. Run a game built on the wrong assumptions and it produces polite silence, not insight.
My games are designed in India, run in India, and calibrated to what actually happens in Indian organisational dynamics - the coalition-building that happens outside the room, the deference that blocks honest feedback, the silence that looks like agreement but isn't. The game creates space to name those patterns without putting anyone on the spot, because the game surfaced it, not a facilitator with a point of view.
Programmes have run across Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai - in-person, full-day and half-day, from 12 to 150 participants depending on the game.
Who brings me in
Usually an L&D head or HR director at a company between 200 and 2,000 people. The situations that tend to land on my desk:
- A new CHRO who wants real data on leadership behaviour before committing the development budget anywhere.
- A GCC that has run the 360s and the workshops - and still hasn't seen the behaviour actually change.
- A team with visible dynamics problems - silos, communication breakdowns, influence failures - that HR can feel but can't name clearly enough to fix.
- A company scaling fast that needs its mid-level managers deciding better under pressure, now, not after a two-year framework rollout.
- An L&D consultancy that needs a serious games facilitation partner for a client programme.
Clients have included a global home-improvement retailer's India GCC, a leading HR-tech platform, a Fortune 500 technology company, a global retail corporation, a global engineering and technology firm, a global pharmaceutical company, an enterprise software company, a large agri-inputs company, IIM Bangalore and IIM Indore. Every one of them has come back for at least one more programme after the first.
The six games
Each game surfaces a different leadership behaviour. Pick the game to match the behaviour you want to examine - not the theme you want to talk about.
- Welcome to Zombiepuram - influence, coalition-building, political intelligence. 15-150 people, ~6 hours.
- Bloom - stakeholder management, networking behaviour, relationship investment. 12-40 people, ~2 hours.
- Sticky Fingers - emergent leadership, collaboration under pressure, information sharing. 12-150 people.
- Planetfall - learning agility, ambiguity tolerance, adaptive decision-making. Up to 20 people, ~2 hours.
- Ripple Effect - cross-functional trust, systems thinking, silo vs. collective optimisation. 16-60 people, ~3 hours.
- Chaos in the Kitchen - senior leader decision-making under shifting conditions, strategic thinking. 15-50 people.
Why this works, in one sentence of research
The case for experiential learning over passive instruction is settled. Kolb's learning cycle, the 70:20:10 model, and decades of training-transfer research all point the same way: knowledge transfers in a classroom, but behaviour changes through experience, reflection and application.
A serious game compresses that whole cycle into a session. The experience happens inside the game. The reflection happens in the debrief. And the application - specific, committed actions - happens before anyone leaves the room.
The numbers back it: a global home-improvement retailer's India GCC scored 8.82/10 average satisfaction across 113 respondents over 6 sessions. A leading HR-tech platform recorded 100% comprehension and engagement, 13 out of 13 participants. These aren't vanity metrics - they measure whether the thing actually landed.
What every programme includes
- A pre-session discovery call and brief
- The facilitated game session (half-day or full-day), run by me, Arvindh Sundar, the person who designed the game
- An EPPA debrief, built to make behaviour visible and name it clearly
- A written behaviour summary afterwards, ready to share with a CHRO or the board
- A committed action plan from every person in the room
No associate facilitators. No licensed delivery without me in the room. And my promise: if the session doesn't surface at least three named leadership behaviour patterns worth changing, I redesign the next one at no cost.
Pricing
Programmes start at ₹50,000 for a group of 15-25 participants. Your final number depends on group size, seniority, location, and whether it is a single batch or several. Send me a note and I will get you a quote within 24 hours of a discovery call.
One honest constraint: I only take 2-3 programmes a month, and slots tend to fill 3-4 weeks out. If you have a date in mind, it is worth starting the conversation early.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are serious games suitable for all seniority levels?
Different games work better at different levels. Bloom and Sticky Fingers land well with mid-level managers - team leads and senior individual contributors. Welcome to Zombiepuram and Chaos in the Kitchen are built for senior and C-suite audiences. Ripple Effect and Planetfall work across levels. In the pre-session brief I will surface which game fits your specific group.
Can serious games be run remotely?
The six games in this portfolio are in-person only, and on purpose. The social dynamics that make the debrief valuable - who talks to whom, who leads when no one is watching, who goes silent under pressure - need people physically in the room. Digital platforms can run simulations, but they produce different data. If your group is distributed, that is a conversation worth having before you book.
How do serious games fit alongside other L&D interventions?
Best as a diagnostic or an anchor, not as a standalone. A serious game hands you behavioural data - specific, named patterns for specific people or teams. That is useful before a coaching programme (it tells you what to coach), after a leadership framework rollout (did it actually change anything?), or as a reset when previous training hasn't produced visible change.
What industries do you work with?
Programmes have run in GCCs, tech companies, BFSI (banking, financial services, insurance), pharma, FMCG and manufacturing. The games surface organisational behaviour patterns, not industry-specific knowledge - which is exactly why they transfer across sectors. In the pre-session brief I make sure the scenario framing fits your group's context.