DoD game funding for military training: the 2020 Serious Play sessions

The conference announced on June 3, 2020, from Orlando, that game developers and instructional designers could learn how to apply for federal funding for technology the military can use in training. The sessions ran June 23 to 25, 2020, as part of Serious Play Conference ONLINE, and all of them were recorded so attendees could review them later.

Game-based learning was already part of how the U.S. government trains soldiers. Retired general Frank Kelley of the Defense Acquisition University said games and simulations had changed in military use, and that the government now looks to young technology start-ups and funds them to propose new ideas for training.

For developers weighing that route, DoD game funding was the common thread of three named sessions.

Kelley appears twice in the program, once alone and once on the funding panel. The panels and workshops on qualifying for and securing government funding were sold separately from the main conference, at $175. The organizers pointed attendees to a passes and prices page and to the main conference site for the rest of the program.

The session titles map to three questions: what the military wants from game developers, which opportunities the Army's synthetic training development offers them, and where to apply for funding across the military departments. The online format replaced the in-person event because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The conference's main address now opens a regional selector with a North American and a European edition. The North American page lists a conference at the University of Washington in Seattle on August 3 to 5, with tickets on sale, and its menu carries winners lists for 2026, 2025 and 2024 under Awards. The North American page says the conference explores how play, games and gamification are changing education, training and knowledge mobilization, through interactive workshops and sessions led by experts, scholars and practitioners. It describes six tracks spanning education, healthcare, cultural institutions, research, corporate, not-for-profits and government. The passes and prices page from 2020 no longer loads.

Developers looking for current DoD game funding programs will find none described on the conference pages. This site's public funding page collects the programs that fund serious games.