Serious Games Integration in Companies: A Research and Application Framework

Abstract

Serious Games are games that educate, train and inform using entertainment principles. Serious Games have the potential for application in companies. However, less investigation has been focused on how to integrate Serious Games in to companies. The authors have developed a classification framework to help understand the different ways serious games can be used in companies. In order to achieve this aim, cases of serious games were identified from experts, conferences, events, developer companies and the Gala Network. These cases were reviewed to identify serious games relevant to business and management. From these, cases were collected of serious games application/use in companies. These were then classified according to the types of use in the classification framework. The identified ways serious games can be used in companies were: in corporate training, for change management, through viral diffusion and Gamification. A case study of each type of use is presented in the paper. Finally, future work towards the refinement of the framework that can add to theory building for research in the use and integration of serious games in companies is discussed.