Serious Games Teaching Values

Abstract

The number of serious games dealing with human right issues has increased in recent years. All of them want to teach/present certain values and make players think about the contents presented. Therefore, it is interesting to have a closer look at different ways of how these games try to integrate values. After discussing the development of human rights digital games in brief, this chapter is going to have a look at various game elements that can express and embody values. Several examples will illustrate how games might more or less successfully deal with human rights and values. Finally, some research results will be presented discussing what serious games might be able to achieve.

Blue Gold, Game-Based Learning to Encourage Sustainable Consumption: The Case of Mobile Phones

“…Incorporating game elements into the educational process can facilitate this cognitive progression. Supported by its high motivational power, gamification uses game dynamics to promote desired behaviors and therefore can be applied to real-world problems [32], such as to teach about environmental awareness [33], to teach about sustainability [34], or to teach about human rights [35]. Game-based learning uses a game as part of the learning process, which allows us to transform theoretical concepts into experiential content, inducing an active understanding in the participants [36].…”