Roadmap on Serious Games in Companies Version -1.0_10/09/2014 Page 1 of 33 Table of Contents 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................3 1.1 Corporate SGs SoA overview................................................................................................................4 1.2 Basic classification of corporate SGs ....................................................................................................6 1.3 Game type/technology:........................................................................................................................7 2 SGs in companies – Roadmap Topics ...........................................................................................................8 2.1 Topic 1: Corporate SG Applications......................................................................................................9 2.1.1 State of the Art ...........................................................................................................................9 2.1.2 Vision and Gap ......................................................................................................................... 11 2.1.3 Research Challenges ................................................................................................................ 12 2.2 Topic 2: Evidence of SG Outcomes in Companies ............................................................................. 14 2.2.1 State of the Art ........................................................................................................................ 14 2.2.2 Vision and Gap ......................................................................................................................... 15 2.2.3 Research Challenges ................................................................................................................ 16 2.3 Topic 3: Game Analytics and Data Issues .......................................................................................... 18 2.3.1 State of the art......................................................................................................................... 18 2.3.2 Vision and Gap ......................................................................................................................... 18 2.3.3 Research Challenges ................................................................................................................ 19 2.4 Topic 4: Game Mechanics and Learning............................................................................................ 21 2.4.1 Vision and Gap ......................................................................................................................... 21 2.4.2 Research Challenges ................................................................................................................ 21 2.5 Topic 5: SG Development from Art to Science .................................................................................. 22 2.5.1 State of the Art ........................................................................................................................ 23 2.5.2 Vision and Gap ......................................................................................................................... 23 2.5.3 Research Challenges ................................................................................................................ 23 2.6 Topic 6: Development of remote/mobile SG learning ...................................................................... 25 2.6.1 State of the Art ........................................................................................................................ 25 2.6.2 Vision and Gap ......................................................................................................................... 26 2.6.3 Research Challenges ................................................................................................................ 26 3 Prioritisation and conclusion..................................................................................................................... 27 4 References................................................................................................................................................. 30 5 Contributors............................................................................................................................................... 33 Version -1.0_10/09/2014 Page 2 of 33 1 INTRODUCTION Serious games are games that educate, train and inform; and they have been shown to be successful as a learning method for conveying skills on complex tasks. It could therefore be expected that serious games would play an important role within corporate training, but this seems not to be the case. This document analyses the state of the art of serious games that are for use in companies. It then identifies gaps that need to be addressed by research. There is a long tradition of the use of Serious Games for corporate training, going back to the 1950s (Cohen & Rhenman, 1961). Serious Games have proven to be an important tool in supporting training in industry (Michael & Chen, 2006). The evolution of Serious Games has continued and in the last 15 years there has been a significant growth of interest and research in the application of serious games. In particular there has been a digital turn (Aldrich 2005; Faria 2001; Gibson & Aldrich 2007), which has led to an upsurge in interest. Some recent examples are the use of Serious Games in the US Army - in 2002 they released the online, free- of-charge, America’s Army (Alhadeff, 2007). A review of serious games intended for use in companies was carried out (see Azadegan & Riedel, 2012; Riedel & Azadegan, 2014). This review produced a framework for classifying the ways that serious games can be used in companies. Further, the framework was validated by mapping circa 60 SGs onto it (Azadegan & Riedel, 2012). Serious Games can be used in companies in four main ways (See figure 1 below): 1) in corporate training, 2) in active company interventions/ strategic change, 3) through viral diffusion and 4) with Gamification Figure 1: Classification Framework of Serious Games Use in Companies Importantly the framework identifies that serious games can be used as organizational change interventions – to improve organizational processes (by modelling existing and improved processes), for cultural change/adaptation, and for strategy development. The classic example of a strategic intervention is the use Version -1.0_10/09/2014 Page 3 of 33 of Lego Serious Play – which can be used by companies to model their vision of possible future strategies. There has been a recent growth in the use of gamification within companies for both internal uses (eg. Gamifying corporate social network systems) and external uses (advertising/promotional purposes). Finally, serious games may be distributed through an organisation through a process of viral diffusion – as opposed to just being used on formal training programmes. This viral diffusion approach enables a rapid uptake of serious games in the company and encourages mass participation – thus achieving a low cost per participant. 1.1 Corporate SGs SoA overview A mapping of the state of the art for SGs for business and industry was carried out (Riedel & Baalsrud Hauge, 2011; GALA D7.1). As a first step a classification scheme of applications of serious games for business and industry was devised. The classification scheme has got two dimensions – simulation level (individual, team, organisation, etc) and skills mediated (hard: product knowledge, etc; and soft skills: learning, creativity, etc.). The primary dimension of this classification scheme is that of the simulation level, see Table 1 below. The "simulation level" means the level, or amount, of the world that is simulated in the simulation or serious game. This is a hierarchy starting with the World/ God/ Universe – in which level whole worlds are simulated. The hierarchy then proceeds downwards from nation, industry, inter-organisational, business/ organisation, department/ organisation, group/ team, discipline and individual to games addressing the Operations/ Task level. The table below gives an overview of the results of the mapping: the areas of a business that serious games can be used in (simulation level), example applications, example SGs and the target users. This shows that many areas of business are addressed by serious games. Table 1: Overview SoA corporate serious games SG Level Application Example SGs Target users Inter- Supply chain management Seconds, STP-VP Engineers, managers organisational Strategy Strategy problems and Lego Serious Play Senior managers, strategic change functional managers Organisation Behaviour change: All employees - gamification of corporate Deloitte, Joiz knowledge sharing - (customer) social EMC Ramp networking platforms - energy saving SAP Vampire Hunt Communication: SGs The public, potential as a novel means customers Marketing/ Brand awareness Siemens’ Plantville Department/ Change management EIS, Wallbreakers Managers, Departmental Cultural change Lego Serious Play managers organisation Cultural Awareness Afghanistan Team Business simulations/games TopSim Executive education (hundreds of examples – focused on finance) Version -1.0_10/09/2014 Page 4 of 33 Collaboration TeamUp Managers Negotiation Eagle Racing Managers