Benefits and challenges of serious gaming – the case of “The Maladaptation Game”

Asplund, Therese; Neset, Tina-Simone; Käyhkö, Janina; Wiréhn, Lotten; Juhola, Sirkku

doi:10.1515/opag-2019-0010

Cited by 22 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…This demonstrates the trade-off between the wish to address several complexities and to disseminate clear messages about the value of measures. Balancing simplification and complexity is a common challenge for climate change games, and in line with earlier studies [6,7,20,26]. This also points to the importance of not using games as a stand-alone event but as an integrated part of a longer learning process [31,36].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

Serious Gaming for Climate Adaptation—Assessing the Potential and Challenges of a Digital Serious Game for Urban Climate Adaptation

et al. 2020

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Serious gaming has gained increasing prominence in climate change communication, and provides opportunity to engage new audiences and new platforms for knowledge co-creation and dialogues. This paper presents the design and evaluation of a serious game on climate adaptation, primarily targeted towards high school students, practitioners and politicians. The game aims to provide an experience of the impact of climate adaptation measures, and illustrates links with selected Agenda 2030 goals, which the player has to consider, while limiting impacts of hazardous climate events. The game design builds on the key goals in Education for Sustainable Development combining comprehensive views, action competence, learner engagement and pluralism. This study draws on game sessions and surveys with high school students in Sweden, and aims to assess to what extent different aspects of the game can support an increased understanding of the needs and benefits of adaptation actions. The results of this study indicate that the game can engage players to reflect upon challenges related to climate adaptation decision making, but also point towards the challenge of including a high degree of complexity which can make it difficult to grasp consequences of individual measures, as well as to link these to the natural variability of the occurrence of extreme climatic events.Sustainability 2020, 12, 1789 2 of 18 mere entertainment such as instructional goals" [6] p. 414, has been addressed in a number of recent studies. Given the complexity of climate adaptation, referred to as a "wicked problem par excellence" [10] (p. 28), scientific knowledge, rivalling social interests as well as ethical consideration need to be recognized, and hence demand new types of educational tools. Enhancing science education by contextualizing the content as socioscientific issues is argued to increase understanding as well as to train ethical reflection and personal judgement needed in modern societies [11,12]. This is also in line with the core of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) that strives for systems thinking and democratic action competence in a world full of conflicting interests [13,14]. In this capacity, serious games can support teachers to strengthen their Education for Sustainable Development as it provides an experience of climate adaptation, based on systems thinking and action orientation. Inspired by these two strategies, we argue that digital games can be a valuable resource in climate communication and education.Climate change games cover a wide range of related topics, such as urban development [15,16], personal action [3], land use models [17], agriculture [18-20], water management [21-25], climate risk attribution [26] and simulations of climate negotiations [27]. In their review of climate adaptation games, Flood et al. [7] present a large number of more recent games with focus on climate adaptation, and discuss their efficiency for "engaging with diverse publics and enable social learning" [7] (p. 18) as well as the role of ...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

Serious Gaming for Climate Adaptation—Assessing the Potential and Challenges of a Digital Serious Game for Urban Climate Adaptation

et al. 2020

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“…An assessment of the game from a communication theoretical perspective (Asplund et al, 2019) identified a number of opportunities and barriers that to some extent resonate with the current literature on serious gaming. In this section, we expand upon this analysis with reference to comments and feedback collected during the gaming sessions.…”

Section: Engagement Interactivity and Experienced Relevancementioning

confidence: 82%

Supporting Dialogue and Analysis on Trade-Offs in Climate Adaptation Research With the Maladaptation Game

Neset

Juhola

Wiréhn

et al. 2020

Simulation & Gaming

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Background. Serious games are gaining increasing prominence in environmental communication research, but their potential to form an integrated part of participatory research approaches is still strikingly understudied. This is particularly the case for applications of interactive digital formats in research on environmental challenges of high complexity, such as climate adaptation, which is a specifically suitable case as it involves complex interaction between climate systems and society, but where the response also involves trade-offs with potentially negative -maladaptive -outcomes.Intervention. This article presents the Maladaptation Game, which was designed to facilitate dialogue about potential negative outcomes of agricultural climate adaptation.Methods. We conducted test sessions with agricultural stakeholders in Finland and Sweden, and analysed quantitative and qualitative, audio-recorded and transcribed, material for opportunities and challenges related to dialogues, engagement, interactivity and experienced relevance.Results. The qualitative analysis of recorded dialogues shows that the Maladaptation Game has potential to support dialogue by challenging players to negotiate

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“…The Maladaptation Game was designed to support dialogue to better understand how agricultural actors make decisions regarding adaptation as they simultaneously have to consider potential maladaptive outcomes (http://maladaptationgame.info/). The games was found to both support and hinder players' sense-making processes around climate change maladaptation in various ways [Asplund et al, 2019]. In a study design similar to this one, focus group participants' perspectives on the benefits and challenges of playing The Maladaptation Game were analysed.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Credibility aspects of research-based gaming in science communication — the case of The Maladaptation Game

Asplund¹

2020

JCOM

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While previous studies have found games and gaming to be a new and innovative communication strategy to inform the public and citizens about scientific research and engage them with it, this article addresses the under-researched question of credibility aspects in research-based gaming. The study analyses agricultural stakeholders' discussions on the credibility of scientific descriptions in The Maladaptation Game — a game based on research on climate change maladaptation in Nordic agriculture. The analysis of focus group transcripts and frame credibility finds that players attribute credibility to 1) the perceived correspondence between game-articulated information on climate change, suggested adaptation actions and their potential maladaptive outcome, 2) the perceived “fit” between these elements and players' experiences, and 3) the information sources underpinning the game. Lastly, the article discusses the role of research-based games in science communication and advocates the need for careful balance between models of conceptual and scientific thinking in game design and everyday experiences among players.

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Benefits and challenges of serious gaming – the case of “The Maladaptation Game”

Cited by 22 publications

References 36 publications

Serious Gaming for Climate Adaptation—Assessing the Potential and Challenges of a Digital Serious Game for Urban Climate Adaptation

Serious Gaming for Climate Adaptation—Assessing the Potential and Challenges of a Digital Serious Game for Urban Climate Adaptation

Supporting Dialogue and Analysis on Trade-Offs in Climate Adaptation Research With the Maladaptation Game

Credibility aspects of research-based gaming in science communication — the case of The Maladaptation Game

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