Abstract
Serious games have emerged as new tools that enable players to acquire and enhance their skills and knowledge, and have become increasingly popular in fields such as education, industrial and emergency training, efforts for social betterment, and marketing. While the use of serious games has extended rapidly to a variety of domains, their development remains a challenging process both for developers and teachers/ trainers. This paper approaches the technological environment underpinning the development of serious games, and focuses on interoperability. Developing serious games in a way that enables interoperability is one means of increasing the depth and scope of instructional materials available to learners while reducing the overall development costs and time. Interoperability, the ability of computers and applications to communicate and share resources in a heterogeneous environment, is dependable on standards. Optimizing requirements of accessibility, interoperability, durability, and reusability for maximizing cost efficiency start with a proper understanding and integration of standards. The authors analyse various Serious Games interoperability scenarios and address the main gaps surrounding standardization in this field with the purpose of assisting developers and teachers in implementing successful solutions. The scenarios are based on a Serious Game Multidimensional Interoperability Framework that integrates the core components included within a serious game (game mechanics, gameplay, graphics engine, graphic objects), the ecosystem where the serious game will be implemented (developing platforms, programming languages, LMS communications) and external factors that go beyond the core technical aspects of a serious game (assessment, applicability, classification, glossary of terms). The research considers the existing standards that impact serious games development, as well as the gaps and the fragmentation issues that hinder the development process with the purpose of identifying efficient solutions. |
