In this study we provide a new viewpoint on the body of literature regarding rewards in serious and educational games. The study includes a quantitative bibliometric analysis of literature in this context from 1969 to 2020. The dataset from the Scopus abstract and citation database was analyzed with the Bibliometrix R library. The data set was manually cleaned to contain only the relevant articles and conference papers. The data was then categorized to match the common themes. From the remaining documents, the amount of annual numbers of publications is presented and the most contributing countries are shown. The most frequent terms from the abstracts and keywords set by the authors are presented, and a co-occurrence network is drawn from the same data. The results of this study reveal that the most occurring topics in this dataset are gamification, physical activity, health, game design, and game-based learning. New directions for research are provided as the most commonly used media appear to be video games and mobile devices in addition to the literature being mostly focused on theory and not practical application.
The increase in the number of smart mobile devices has led the explosion of a variety of educational and recreational game applications. This study's purpose is to find common themes in the reward types of the cumulatively most-installed educational and recreational mobile games. The video games were observed by researchers from previously recorded footage available online. The most frequently occurring reward types in the most installed game applications in descending order are sensory feedback, glory, access, sustenance, facility and praise. Educational and recreational games appear to have differences in reward types present, recreational games having significantly higher median of total reward types. In the most installed game applications data set, the occurrence of every individual reward system, except praise and sensory, are significantly different between educational and recreational games. In-game rewards which seem to fit into multiple reward types are highlighted. In conclusion reward types differ in occurrence in addition to popular educational games appearing to have less reward types present than games made purely for entertainment purposes.
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