The Design and Development of a Game-Based Approach to Entrepreneurship Education--Translating Entertainment Game Design Principles to Educational Games

摘要

This paper describes the design and development process of a game-based training approach to entrepreneurship education. The game serves as part of a broader online training course which seeks to facilitate awareness of and engagement with dual-career development amongst amateur and professional athletes. Building on previously reported work around needs identification through focus groups and participatory design, this paper documents the processes and frameworks adopted to translate these concepts into a tangible game-based learning environment. In doing so, we reflect on the current state-of-the art in game-based learning design and its implications when considering the pragmatic constraints and compromises often associated with the development of immersive learning experiences. A core theme of this paper is the seeming divergence between entertainment game development principles, and those of serious games, which are identified and explored in this paper as principally occurring in terms of objectives, stakeholders, scaling, and iteration. Our discussion focuses on the consequences of this divergence, and common problems that arise. Conclusions and future work provide suggestions towards refining existing serious game design frameworks towards pragmatic and efficient development methods.