Serious Games as Planning Support Systems: Learning from Playing Maritime Spatial Planning Challenge 2050

Serious games are proposed here as planning support systems (PSS) for maritime spatial planning (MSP), a response to fragmented ocean governance and intensifying competition for marine space. The study examines MSP Challenge 2050, a serious game evaluated through a 2017 workshop in Newfoundland with 18 participants, supplemented by events in Venice and Copenhagen. Its analysis draws on surveys, Mann-Whitney U tests, and audiovisual coding of player interactions, framed around three levels of PSS value: individual, group, and outcome.

Interaction analysis of the Newfoundland session recorded 102 exchanges, of which about half involved players helping one another understand game features (socialization), and roughly a quarter each involved requests for conceptual clarification (externalization) and extrapolation to real-world planning (combination). Players with less than two years of MSP experience gained significant insight into how planning factors interact, and explicit knowledge transfer and reflection were the most common quality interactions. However, quality interactions were far less frequent than total interactions, and technical difficulties emerged as the main barrier.

Collaboration was rated highly across sites, though the Copenhagen group, largely professionals who did not know one another beforehand, scored significantly lower, around 3.4 to 3.75 out of 5. Debriefings showed that removing economic components simplified the task but reduced realism, and that teams often skipped the consultation step once they learned approval was not required, mirroring real-world approval bottlenecks. Teams with more comprehensive national plans and more quality interactions tended to produce stronger plans.

The authors conclude that MSP Challenge 2050 offers individual, group, and outcome-level value comparable to a PSS, but its steep interface learning curve, absence of economic considerations, and simplified Ecopath model limit its realism for decision-making. Knowledge gains and real-world outcome benefits remain unconfirmed, as no pre- and post-game testing was conclusive. The study positions serious games as promising stakeholder development tools and points to the MSP Challenge Platform as the planned successor addressing these shortcomings.