Serious games for sustainable development: A decision-driven transformative approach

Abstract

Digital games are pervasive, prevalent, persuasive and powerful. Several researchers recognize that sustainable development is an area that can benefit from persuasion, particularly, of values. We therefore explore serious games for sustainable development in this paper. We find that decision-making underpins learning and persuasion in serious games. As a result, we propose a decision-driven transformative approach for the design of serious games for sustainable development. This research uses design science research to propose conceptual artifacts for the design of serious games for sustainable development. We also create actual game prototypes as system artifacts to demonstrate the application of the proposed conceptual artifacts. We draw inspiration from the 17 internationally endorsed UN sustainable development goals, focusing on goal 6 – Clean water and sanitation. We believe that this approach has helped lay a solid foundation for creating artifacts to further support the design and development of serious games for sustainable development.