Eelco Braad

Ethical Stewardship: Designing Serious Games Seriously

In this chapter, we propose an ethical framework for serious game design, which we term the Ecosystem for Designing Games Ethically (EDGE). EDGE expands on Zagal’s categorization of ethical areas in game design by incorporating the different contexts of design and their use. In addition, we leverage these contexts to suggest four guidelines that support Ethical Stewardship in serious game design. We conclude by discussing a number of specific areas in which ethics plays a role in serious game design. These include games in (a) a military context, (b) the consideration of privacy issues, and (c) the evaluation of game design choices.

Attributing Design Decisions in the Evaluation of Game- Based Health Interventions

The use of games as interventions in the domain of health care is often paired with evaluating the effects in randomized clinical trials. The iterative design and development process of games usually also involves an evaluation phase, aimed at identifying improvements for subsequent iterations. Since game design theory and theories from associated fields provide no unified framework for designing successful interventions, interpreting evaluation results and formulating improvements is complicated. This case study explores an approach of monitoring design decisions and corresponding theories throughout the design and development cycle, allowing evaluation results to be attributed to design decisions. Such an approach may allow the game design and development process to iterate the game more efficiently towards use in practice.

Processes and Models for Serious Game Design and Development

A serious game needs to combine a number of different aspects to help the end user in reaching the desired effects. This requires incorporating a broad range of different aspects in the design, stemming from a broad range of different fields of expertise. For designers, developers, researchers, and other stakeholders it is not straightforward how to organize the design and development process, to make sure that these aspects are properly addressed. In this chapter we will discuss a number of ways of organizing the design and development process and various models that support specific design decisions during this process, concluding with a discussion of design patterns for serious games.

Games for Learning

This chapter discusses educational aspects and possibilities of serious games. For researchers as well as game designers we describe key learning theories to ground their work in theoretical framework. We draw on recent meta-reviews to offer an exhaustive inventory of known learning and affective outcomes in serious games, and to discuss assessment methods valuable not only for research but also for efficient serious game design. The implementation and design of serious games are outlined in separated sections. Different individual characteristics that seem to be strongly affecting process of learning with serious games (learning style, gender and age) are discussed with emphasis on game development.