Serious Games, Games for Learning and Gamified Apps

Dear Colleagues,

Serious games have been around for nearly 55 years, when the term was introduced by Clark Abt (1970) in his book called “Serious Games”. Although some feel that the term serious games is inherently contradictory, it has been clear from the start that the main purpose of serious games is to educate players, or change their behaviour or attitudes. However, like entertainment games, serious games may also be fun, and the idea of using games for learning was driven by the hope that the engaging features found in entertainment games might motivate players and thereby support learning.

Serious games have been developed across many disciplines, including STEM subjects, health, business & economics, history, social science & politics, and across different levels of education from nursery to tertiary education, as well as in the worlds of work and leisure. Serious games are now big business and the serious games market is projected to reach $32.72 billion by 2030. While serious games are regarded as an engaging means of learning, evidence to substantiate their effectviness has been relatively slow to accumulate.

As editors of this special edition we have been working in games research for nearly twenty years. Designing a serious game is a complex, interdisciplinary endeavour that requires input from specialists with different interests and varied skill sets: the design and IT skills of the game designer and developer, the content knowledge of the subject matter expert, the pedagogical knowledge of the educational theorist and the research knowledge of the game evaluator.

The aim of this special edition is to bring together research in serious games, game-based learning and gamified apps across varied disciplines and for varied functions. Games Based Learning is a sub-category of Serious Games, while gamified apps refer to task-based applications that include game elements that aim to engage players. We invite submissions that provide empirical evidence for the effectiveness of games, real-life applications and case studies of specific games as well as literature reviews. Both quantitative and qualitative studies are welcome. Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:

• Serious games;
• Game-based learning;
• Gamification in learning;
• Gamified apps;
• Games for training;
• Simulations;
• Games for behaviour change;
• Learning and pedagogy in games;
• Game genre, game mechanics, game narrative;
• Non digital games;
• Serious games in different disciplines: STEM, health, business & economics, history, social science & politics;
• Assessment in serious games;
• Evaluation of serious games;
• Case studies in serious games;
• New technologies in serious games: Generative AI, Learning analytics, Virtual reality and Augmented Reality.

Dr. Elizabeth Boyle
Dr. Gavin Baxter
Dr. Thomas Hainey
Prof. Dr. Athanassios Jimoyiannis
Guest Editors

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• serious games
• game-based learning
• gamification
• gamified apps
• simulations
• STEM
• history
• assessment and evaluation of serious games
• new technologies for serious games
• engagement and Immersive learning environments