MANAGING MICRO-CREDENTIAL ONLINE PROGRAM ON GAME DEVELOPERS

Abstract

Game is believed to be the industry and the life of the future; thus, game is not a mere entertainment. In Indonesia,
the game industry is becoming a potential market to be pursued, and it has contributed to the dominant market (43%)
of gamers in Southeast Asia in 2021. With its demographic bonus and game market share, Indonesia has a huge
opportunity to build a gaming industry chain by accelerating organic growth through (a) talent creation; (b) flooding
the market with local games; (c) competing with the international game market to increase the country's recognition
and income.
ICE Institute participates in the game talent creation through coordination among 10 universities to form a consortium
and offer a micro-credential program for game developers in Indonesia. Most of the game developers’ training
programs are delivered face-to-face, while ICE Institutes delivered it fully online. The program has attracted more
than 5000 students from about 186 higher education institutions in Indonesia. After the selection process, 672 students
(about 13%) participated in the 14 weeks program. Students participated in 15 credit hours courses of their selected
stream: game artist, game design, game developer, educational game developer, and game project management, for
8 weeks. Afterward, students were teamed to work on developing Minimum Viable Product (MVP) games in various
genres: entertainment games, serious games, and educational games. Using the virtual game lab, 54 games were
developed at the end of the program. This paper will discuss the experience of ICE Institute in designing, delivering,
evaluating, and coordinating the micro-credential program for game developers, and some lessons learned for future
improvement of the program.