In this episode of The Learning Pro Live, I sat down with Stephen Baer, co-founder of The Game Agency, to dive deep into a topic that many L&D professionals are desperate to master: gamification.

Stephen and his team have been blending the addictive mechanics of video games with educational content since 2007, working with everyone from Fortune 500 companies to K-12 schools. While we often think of games as “just for fun,” Stephen proved that they are powerful tools for driving repetition, engagement, and deep learning retention.

Here are the key takeaways from our chat on how to bring serious play into your training strategy.

Why Games Work for Learning

We started by addressing the elephant in the room: games are engaging, but are they effective? Stephen explained that the real power of games lies in intrinsic motivation. When a learner plays a game like Jeopardy! or a match-three puzzle, they aren’t just trying to complete a compliance module; they are trying to beat their own high score or top the leaderboard.

This drive encourages voluntary repetition. Instead of reading a PDF once, a learner might play a game five or six times to improve their result. As a byproduct, they are drilling the content into their long-term memory without it feeling like a chore.

The Training Arcade: Build Games in Minutes

One of the biggest barriers to gamification is cost and time. Custom games can take months and massive budgets to build. Stephen showcased The Training Arcade, a platform that allows instructional designers to build high-quality games in as little as 30 minutes.

The platform includes a library of game types matched to specific learning objectives:

• Jeopardy! & Trivia: Perfect for assessing knowledge recall.
• Scenarios & Detective: Ideal for soft skills, sales training, and critical thinking, where learners must navigate complex choices.
• Jump & Match-Three: Great for quick, repetitive engagement to reinforce simple concepts.

Crucially, these games are SCORM-compliant and xAPI-ready, meaning you can plug them directly into your LMS or embed them on an intranet site.

Data Is King

Beyond the fun factor, Stephen highlighted the incredible data analytics that games provide. Unlike a standard eLearning module that might just tell you “complete/incomplete,” games offer granular insights.

You can see exactly which questions learners are struggling with, how many attempts it took to get the right answer, and where knowledge gaps exist across different regions or departments. This allows L&D teams to intervene with targeted training rather than guessing where the problems lie.

Not Just for Kids

While The Game Agency does amazing work in the K-12 space (Stephen showed us some brilliant STEM games involving hockey!), the principles apply directly to corporate learning.

Whether it is pharmaceutical sales reps learning about new products or customer service teams practising soft skills, adults crave engagement just as much as kids. By injecting humour, competition, and storytelling into corporate training, we can break the monotony of “click-next” learning and create experiences that people actually want to take part in.

Watch the full interview above to see live demos of the games, the backend builder, and examples of custom gamification projects for major brands.