Strategies and Tools to Enable Reuse in Serious Games Ecosystems and Beyond

Abstract

Software ecosystems are defined as collections of organizations that are related through software or a software related concept. Within such ecosystems, reusability is fundamental to software sustainability and cost-efficiency. Design for reusability brings the technical promise of high quality software that emerges from clean design, fitness for a purpose and a low defect count. This ensures the software is extensible to cater for or modifiable for different pipelines, data and purposes. Functionally, it facilitates the transition from Serious Games (SG) software projects that have been known to consume endless resources, and deliver expensive products, to successful SG projects in terms of quality, costs and timeframe. From an educational perspective, efforts at national and international level aim to increase the accessibility of serious game development via reusable, open components repositories. To enable SG researchers, developers, and implementers adopt reusability, it is necessary to create a gateway to reusable SG assets in the SG community. This would faciliate the SG community members to start exploring the large and rapidly growing body of literature on SG research, development and implementation, as well as on reuse for more detailed information on cost models, class libraries, organizational structures, repository management, knowledge reuse, and many other important issues. For SG reusability to reach its full potential this effort should not address exclusively the SG ecosystems but cross the boundaries of other disciplines and establishes the impact of reusable SG assets and knowledge has on related fields. Under these premises, the authors consider the development premises of a Serious Games Reusability Reference Point (SGREF) that aims to assist the SG community and also support transdisciplinary initiatives.