Towards a Framework for Designing and Assessing Game-Based Approaches for Sustainable Water Governance

Abstract

Most of the literature on serious games and gamification calls for a shift from evaluating practices to using theories to assess them. While the former is necessary to justify using game-based approaches, the latter enables understanding “why” game-based approaches are beneficial (or not). Based on earlier review papers and the papers in this special issue of Water entitled “Understanding game-based approaches for improving sustainable water governance: the potential of serious games to solve water problems”, we show that game-based approaches in a water governance context are relatively diverse. In particular, the expected aims, targeted audience, and spatial and temporal scales are factors that differentiate game-based approaches. These factors also strongly influence the design of game-based approaches and the research developed to assess them. We developed a framework to guide and reflect on the design and assessment of game-based approaches, and we suggest opportunities for future research. In particular, we highlight the lack of game-based approaches that can support “society-driven” sustainable water governance.

The Potential of Serious Games to Solve Water Problems: Editorial to the Special Issue on Game-Based Approaches to Sustainable Water Governance

“…3. Aubert, Medema and Wals take up the question 'why' games are beneficial (or not) for social learning in IWRM [1]. They develop a framework for design and suggest opportunities for future research.…”

“…In this regard, others have claimed that communities of practice, simulations and games can be the tooling for that. Several papers, such as by Marini et al [5] and Aubert et al [1] stress that we first need to understand better the nature of social learning in a context of water management, and how this connects to the design and use of games for learning. One of the main challenges is how to make stakeholders learn.…”

“…How do we know what works, and under what conditions? A systematic scientific assessment of game-based approaches is essential to develop a deeper understanding of how and why a game-based approach fulfills the purpose and objectives it was designed for in the first place [1]. It is important to distinguish studying whether game-based approaches have worked (i.e., practice evaluation) from studying why and how game-based approaches have (or have not) worked (i.e., theory-based research assessment).…”

“…Three papers are conceptual and reflective; seven papers are case and field studies. One paper synthesizes the results [1]. The Special Issue was closed in September 2018.…”

Rapid Games Designing; Constructing a Dynamic Metaphor to Explore Complex Systems and Abstract Concepts

“…Typically, when discussing game formats used for increasing the understanding of systems and their behaviors, the literature refers to the playing of a game [2,11]. Although not exclusively, these games tend to be designed by people with an observational role in the system (such as researchers or trainers) rather than the players themselves, who are "system actors" such as resource users, employees, managers and decision-makers.…”