Educational Games Go Online

While the British Parliament is considering enforcing a new, age-based rating system on online games, some of the leading software companies in the educational games market are aiming to expand into the world of 3D virtual worlds. Knowledge Adventure, the developer and publisher of Math Blaster and Jump Start Learning System, both best-selling and highly-acclaimed educational games, had announced raising an additional $5 million and opening a new India branch for the sake of their new aspiration.

Although the target crowd – kids aged 3-10, or more accurately, parents who insist on educational value with their piece of mind - remains the same, Knowledge Adventure plans to hire a new team of online virtual world specialists. For that matter, the company underwent a couple of rounds of fundraising until a sum of $17.5 million was accumulated thanks to the help of Azure Capital Partners and Telesoft Partners among others.

The online games market for kids has quite a profitable potential, judging by Disney's promptness to invest $700 million for the purchase of Club Penguin (not that educational games was ever suspected to be a non-profit industry). It turns out that despite the intimidation campaign, most parents feel confident seating their kids in front of the web as if it is an innocent TV set that broadcast reruns of the Teletubbies.

In the meantime, the Knowledge Adventure first online product, Jump Start World, received mixed reviews. On one hand, Knowledge ability to enrich and support the knowledge imparting of kindergarten to elementary school students is incomparable. On the other hand, standing on the same line with 3D graphics authorities and entertainers from the league of Nintendo DS, Club Penguin, LeapFrog’s Didj and Leapster, their online game stays a little bit behind.

However, Jump Start World marks the company first foothold in the World Wide Web. Knowledge Adventure intends to release 3D online versions of Math Blaster and Jump Start Learning System, hoping that the kids who'd acquired their primal education with the company brands would bequeath the habit to their younger siblings.