State of Play of Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion: A Review of the Literature and Empirical Cases Authors: Lizzy Bleumers, Anissa All, Ilse Mariën, Dana Schurmans, Jan Van Looy, An Jacobs, Koen Willaert, Frederik de Grove Editor: James Stewart 2012 Forename(s) Surname(s) Report EUR 25652 EN European Commission Joint Research Centre Institute for Prospective Technological Studies Contact information Address: Edificio Expo. c/ Inca Garcilaso, 3. E-41092 Seville (Spain) E-mail: [email protected] Tel.: +34 954488318 Fax: +34 954488300 http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu http://www.jrc.ec.europa.eu This publication is a Technical Report by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. Legal Notice Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use which might be made of this publication. Europe Direct is a service to help you find answers to your questions about the European Union Freephone number (*): 00 800 6 7 8 9 10 11 (*) Certain mobile telephone operators do not allow access to 00 800 numbers or these calls may be billed. A great deal of additional information on the European Union is available on the Internet. It can be accessed through the Europa server http://europa.eu/. JRC77655 EUR 25652 EN ISBN 978-92-79-27977-5 (pdf) ISSN 1831-9424 (online) doi:10.2791/36295 Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2012 © European Union, 2012 Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged. Printed in Spain Acknowledgements This report was commissioned by the Information Society Unit at JRC-IPTS on the topic of Digital games for Empowerment and Inclusion, and produced by a team of researchers at iMinds/IBBT. It contributes to the JRC-IPTS/ DG CNECT study on " Exploring the Potential Impact of Digital Games for Empowerment of Groups at Risk of Social and Economic Exclusion: Opportunities, Challenges and Possible Actions: Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion (DGEI)" as part of the JRC-IPTS evidence-gathering process. The authors and editor would like to thank Gianluca Misuraca and Clara Centeno from the IPTS team for their valuable feedback. We also acknowledge and appreciate the input given by iMinds/IBBT colleagues who acted as internal reviewers for this report: Lieven De Marez, Sven Lindmark, Leo Van Audenhove, and Pieter Verdegem. In addition, we thank the expert reviewers Aphra Kerr (Centre for the study of Wider Europe), Lucia Pannese (imaginary srl, Innovation Network Politecnico di Milano), José M. Escribano Serrano (ARSGAMES) and Ewan McIntosh (NoTosh Limited) who provided the helpful comments that enabled us to improve this report. We also want to extend a word of thank you to the people that participated in the expert interviews that we conducted: Mitra Memarzia (free-lance artist and educator), Brian Alspach (E-line Media) and Seann Dikkers (University of Wisconsin, Gaming Matter). Finally, we express our gratitude to the participants of the DGEI Expert workshop hosted by IPTS on the 23rd and 24th of January, 2012 where the intermediate results of this report were presented by two authors of this report, Jan Van Looy (IBBT-MICT) and An Jacobs (IBBT-SMIT). Participants included the expert reviewers mentioned above and representatives of DG INFSO (Giorgio Zoia) and JRC, IPTS (Clara Centeno, Anusca Ferrari, Gianluca Misuraca, Yves Punie, and James Stewart). In addition, the following people attended the workshop: Ilona Buchem (Beuth University of Applied Sciences), Anton Civit (University of Seville), Scott Colfer (Media for Development), Alessandro De Gloria (University of Genoa), Olivier Glassey (University of Lausanne), Celia Gómez González (Consejería de Salud-Junta de Andalucía), Wijnand Ijsselsteijn (Eindhoven University of Technology), Hazaël Jones (LIP6, part of Université Pierre & Marie Curie and CNRS, involved in TARDIS Project), Rilla Khaled (IT University of Copenhagen), Will Leonard (White Loop Limited), Simon Little (Interactive Software Federation of Europe), Julian Martin (OneClick), Igor Mayer (TU Delft), Jean Menu (Universciences), Joyce Neys (Erasmus University of Rotterdam), Francesco Niglia (INNOVA Spa / NET EUCEN Network), Lucas Paletta (Joanneum Research, involved in MASELTOV project), Lucia Pannese (I-MAGINARY), Björn Schuller (Technische Universität München, involved in ASC-Inclusion Project), Jean Paul Simon (JPS Public Policy Consulting), Damir Simunic (WA Research), Jesús Trancoso (Junta de Andalucía), and David Wortley (Serious Games Institute) 1 Preface In Europe today an estimated 110 million people are at risk of social exclusion. This presents society, entrepreneurs and policy makers with a challenge that calls for social innovation of all types to tackle low skills, unemployment, discrimination, barriers to disabled people, poor health and other factors associated with social exclusion. The Information Society Unit at the JRC IPTS leads research to explore and show when and how information, communication and media technologies can both shape the conditions of social exclusion, and offer pathways to social inclusion, particularly when used by social inclusion actors and intermediaries. Previous research has demonstrated how 'conventional' technologies such as the PC and internet applications can support socio-economic inclusion processes for populations at risk of exclusion such as migrants, youth at risk, and the elderly and their carers. In recent years there has been growth of research and commercial activity in the use of digital games for non-leisure activities and the promise of gamification as a building block of social innovation promoted DG CNCT and the JRC-IPTS to launch a study, Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion (DGEI). The goal was to better understanding of how this hugely popular media form is being applied to issues of concern for social inclusion policy, and inform future policy options. The main output of the study is the JRC Scientific and Policy report " The Potential of Digital Games for Empowerment and Social Inclusion of Groups at Risk of Social and Economic Exclusion: Evidence and Opportunity for Policy. It is accompanied by two JRC technical reports, of which this is one. This report presents a detailed literature review of the current state of research knowledge and original empirical research practice. It addresses not only the way that games work, but explores the conditions under which games are used in practice, and the challenges facing the production of special-purpose games. It is hoped that this report will support games and social inclusion researchers and practitioners, policy makers, and other stakeholders in their work to exploit the world of game development and use in to forward both social goals and research and business projects. 3 Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................................................... 1 PREFACE ............................................................................................................................................................................. 3 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................................. 7 POLICY CONTEXT .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 SCOPE ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 8 METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH ................................................................................................................................................................................... 9 1. KEY CONCEPTS ......................................................................................................................................................... 13 1.1. INCLUSION ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13 1.2. EMPOWERMENT ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 20 1.3. GAMING AND PLAY ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 25 1.4. DIGITAL GAMES FOR EMPOWERMENT AND INCLUSION ............................................................................................................................. 29 2. INSIGHTS FROM RESEARCH AND PRACTICE ..................................................................................................... 35 2.1. LEARNING AND PARTICIPATION IN GAMES: 3 APPROACHES ..................................................................................................................... 35 2.2. MOTIVATION TO PLAY, PARTICIPATE, LEARN ............................................................................................................................................... 50 2.3. APPLICATION DOMAINS ..................................................................................................................................................................................