Serious Games for Education and Training in the Humanitarian Sector: State of the Art

This study by Mukherjee and Guardiola surveys the state of serious games for education and training in the humanitarian sector, a field where adoption has lagged despite the demonstrated value of game-based learning in other domains. The authors identified 89 non-commercial serious games released between 1990 and 2023 that address topics such as disaster risk management, conflict, human rights, and sustainability, and recorded each title's developer, format, platform, purpose, target audience, NGO involvement, and related research. Of these, 49 were designed for awareness, 9 for classroom education, and 31 for professional training of humanitarian workers, policymakers, and stakeholders, the last of which received particular attention.

The findings reveal a concerning accessibility problem. Across all purposes, many serious games are now unavailable or restricted, in contrast to commercial titles on related themes, which remained almost entirely accessible through archives, resellers, or abandonware sites. Among the professional training games, 11 of 31 were no longer available and 10 required direct contact with developers or a workshop to access. Analog, multiplayer games dominated professional training, while digital titles were mostly single-player and largely used for awareness and education. Thirty of the 89 games were developed with NGO involvement, and 62 had been mentioned in research literature, though often in a single overview paper.

The authors identify three recurring obstacles: the need for trained facilitators to guide play and debriefing, the difficulty of adapting content to new regional, social, or cultural contexts, and the absence of standardized scientific frameworks for design and evaluation. They also note the near-total lack of longitudinal studies measuring long-term impact, with most evaluations conducted by designers themselves shortly after gameplay. Qualitative evidence nonetheless suggests the games are valued for experiential learning. The authors recommend archiving and digitizing game materials, involving professional game designers, developing adaptable design frameworks, and conducting third-party, long-term impact evaluations.