Home // International Journal On Advances in Networks and Services, volume 8, numbers 3 and 4, 2015 // View article

A Ludic/Narrative Interpretation of the Willingness to Repeatedly Play Mobile Serious Games

Authors:
Alfredo Imbellone
Brunella Botte
Giada Marinensi
Carlo Maria Medaglia

Keywords: Mobile Game-Based Learning; Corporate Training; Serious Games; Ludology; Narratology

Abstract:
Mobile game-based learning is a very promising sector for corporate training, but it still lacks of a robust scientific research investigating the underlying causal models to explain its working principles. The paper presents the results of an empirical study conducted on two different kits of mobile serious games, composed respectively by 30 and 20 games, both developed in the framework of an European project on mobile game-based learning for corporate training, titled “InTouch”. The study analyzes the causal relationships that influence the players’ willingness to play again the serious games and interprets those findings according to the distinction between ludic and narrative components of the games. The results emerging from the testing of the games on two separate samples of 54 and 118 people can be interpreted as an empirical evidence of the simultaneous, and yet independent, significant role of both the ludic and narrative component of a serious game in determining the willingness to play again. On the whole, for the considered games the ludic factor showed to have a stronger influence than the narrative one. This different weight of ludic and narrative components, however, can be interpreted as a consequence of the specific mobile serious games that were analyzed, and cannot be generalized to other game-based solutions. Furthermore, when analyzing different groups within the considered sample, males and younger people showed to be more influenced by the ludic component, while the narrative component resulted to be stronger than the ludic one for females and older people. The conclusion of the study suggests an implementation of the proposed research concept with other serious games to find if the ludic/narrative interpretative key can improve understanding the structure of the games.

Pages: 149 to 159

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2015. Used with permission.

Publication date: December 30, 2015

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-2644