@article{Nygren2022,

title = {Offsetting Game—Framing Environmental Issues in the Design of a Serious Game},

author = {Nina V. Nygren and Ville Kankainen and Lucas Brunet},

url = {https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202210047407},

doi = {10.1177/10468781221126786},

issn = {1046-8781},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-09-28},

urldate = {2022-09-28},

journal = {Simulation & Gaming},

volume = {53},

issue = {6},

pages = {579-675},

abstract = {Background



Biodiversity crisis requires researchers to reflect on tools and strategies to engage with different stakeholders. We propose that serious games can be designed to introduce stakeholders to a novel environmental policy tool and to communicate research on environmental issues. Our case is biodiversity offsetting (BDO), a novel policy tool aiming to reconcile nature conservation with other land uses. As any media, games offer certain framings of the issues they communicate about—some aspects are made more salient than others. However, frame analysis has not been widely used to analyze the design choices or the messages communicated by games. We analyze how these framings are designed into a game communicating about environmental issues.



Aim



To intervene in the emerging public discussion on BDO in Finland, we designed a land use board game and during the design process, played it with public and private stakeholders who would soon encounter and implement biodiversity offsetting policies in Finland. The aim of this article is to describe how our framings of BDO affected the design process and how those framings interacted with the design decisions we made. With our analysis, we want to contribute to the understanding of how framings and design choices interact in game design and how paying attention to framings is especially important for the design of SGs.



Method



We analyze how our framings of biodiversity offsetting and our design choices interact in game design. Our understanding of biodiversity offsetting guided our game design, but the design choices also contribute to the framing of the issue itself.



Results



Game design choices strongly frame the topic of the game and thus influence the function of a serious game. Thus, the framings of the topic should be considered carefully during the game design process, especially in the context of serious games.},

keywords = {Biodiversity offsetting, Conservation conflicts, Frame analysis, Game design, Nature conservation, Serious games, Simulation games, Stakeholders},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{nokey,

title = {Looking Ahead in Games Research : Entry Points into a Pragmatic Field of Inquiry},

author = {Marko Siitonen and Teresa de la Hera and Felix Reer },

url = {https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v9i1.3685},

doi = {10.17645/mac.v9i1.3685},

issn = {2183-2439},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-01-06},

journal = {Media and Communication},

volume = {9},

issue = {1},

abstract = {This thematic issue presents a number of emerging scholarships into the study of digital gaming. The articles are based on a 2019 symposium on game studies hosted by the Digital Games Research section of ECREA. As the phenomena related to digital gaming keep on evolving and emerging, so must research keep up with the times and constantly challenge itself. Whether speaking about validating previously developed research methods, imagining totally new ones, or even challenging the whole philosophy of science on which research is being done, there is a constant need for reappraisal and introspection within games research. As a cultural medium that has become deeply embedded into the social fabric of the 2020s, digital gaming continues to excite and challenge academia. This thematic issue provides a collection of approaches to look into the future that addresses some of the challenges associated with game research.},

keywords = {Digital games, Game studies, Methodology, Serious games},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}