Dive Brief:
- AWS unveiled Industry Quest: Financial Services, a first-person video game designed to teach cloud skills germane to the banking and finance fields, in a Monday AWS Training and Certification Blog post.
- The game challenges players to complete 20 scenarios in which they learn to build fraud prevention, data lakes for financial services, serverless deposit accounts and other cloud-based solutions, according to the post.
- AWS Cloud Quest, a general cloud solutions role-playing game, was introduced in March and included as part of the Skill Builder subscription service rolled out in August. Industry Quest offerings will also be available to Skill Builder subscribers, AWS said.
Dive Insight:
In Cloud Quest, players use cloud-based applications to help the citizens of a virtual city.
Players in the new iteration, Industry Quest: Financial Services, personalize an avatar and assume responsibility for a simulated financial services firm, rebranding and building its industry profile through more than 20 hour-long game modules, according to the blog.
AWS’ effort to make training more accessible and fun for the user reflects the high demand for cloud skills amid a tight market for tech talent, and the focus on finance isn’t surprising.
More than one-third of senior banking leaders said that a lack of technical skills in their organizations posed a significant barrier to cloud migration, according to a May report by Publicis Sapient and Google Cloud.
Industry Quest: Financial Services is just the first in a series of games AWS plans to release, each of which will introduce industry-specific cloud concepts.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect AWS introduced Cloud Quest in March and included it in the Skill Builder subscription service announced in August. It also further clarifies which service the 20-hour long game modules refer to.
