Serious Games Development Research Laboratories: The Student Experience

摘要

As students in a serious games development and research laboratory, we feel that serious games research is often plagued by a specific issue: poor communication between the academic community and game developers. This issue is not due to a lack of interest or the disbelief that a dialogue would be mutually beneficial, but is instead caused by a language barrier disconnecting the two fields. Simply put, scientists speak one language and game developers another. Academics write and publish in journals that only academics from similar fields read and understand. No matter how great their theory-driven ideas and design guidelines may be, they are rarely put to proper use, remaining inaccessible to the non-scientist. If a researcher asks their production team to incorporate game features that promote metacognitive strategies so as to improve the players' critical thinking skills, they will likely receive blank stares in return. The barrier extends both ways.