Design of a Serious Game to Teach Esports Concepts and Career Pathways

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.34190/ecgbl.18.1.2705

Keywords:

Esports, Serious Games, Competitive Gaming, Career Pathways, Game Genres, Serious Game Frameworks

Abstract

The popularity of esports has gained public interest over the past decade, leading to the industries evolution, providing further avenues for career prospects and educational outreach. Esports, abbreviated from electronic sports, is the nature of playing video games casually or professionally at a competitive capacity, either as an individual, or as a team. Previous research areas in esports have focused on education, psychological factors, health and nutrition, business management, performance review, and commercialisation, factoring in the relevance of esports in sports and supporting terms. The industry has different avenues and perspectives that are advantageous to develop innovative approaches, providing information about the industry, and improving the understanding for the wider general audience. Serious games and games-based learning provides the opportunity to educate and inform about the phenomenon of esports and the potential career industry pathways. This paper presents a conceptual design for an esports serious game to educate players about esports in relation to career pathways and genres. Investigation and adaption of serious game frameworks (e.g. Learning Mechanics-Game Mechanics, Activity Theory Model of Serious Games) will be adhered to through the research. This will lead to the development of a serious game for potential stakeholders to assist in their interests in studying or learning about esports and its multi-faceted career opportunities through simulated scenarios. A mixed methods approach will support the increased frequency of new esports programmes in secondary, further, and higher education, using a serious game to inform prospective students in relation to potential career avenues. The conceptual design idea presented in this paper will support the initial research steps of a serious game to teach about esports.

Author Biographies

Alan Williams, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, UK

Alan Williams is a PhD student at the University of the West of Scotland. His current research interests include esports, serious games, meta-skills and career development. Alan holds a BSc (Hons) degree in computer games development from the University of the West of Scotland. He is interested in applying serious games to esports as an innovative approach to teach stakeholders about the industry. 

Gavin Baxter, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, UK

Dr Gavin Baxter is a senior lecturer in Computer Games Development at the University of the West of Scotland. His research activities include the use of serious games for teaching and learning purposes. His interests also reside in applying serious games and competitive gaming as immersive approaches towards educating students about the meta-skills required for employability.

Thomas Hainey, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, UK

Thomas Hainey is a Senior Lecturer and the Programme Leader of Computer Games Development at the University of the West of Scotland. Thomas has published extensively on Serious Games and Games-based Learning and runs an honours year Serious Games module. His specialisms include: assessment integration, pedagogical content integration and evaluation of Serious Games.

Elizabeth Boyle, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, UK

Dr. Elizabeth Boyle is a reader in Psychology at the University of the West of Scotland with an interest in psychological aspects of e-learning, games and social media. Dr. Boyle has been the project coordinator of four European projects developing games and apps for students across varied content areas including statistics, employability and identity.

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Published

2024-10-07