Realism of Simulation Models in Serious Gaming: Two case studies from Urban Water Management Higher Education
Darwin Droll, Heinrich S\"obke

TL;DR
This study evaluates the realism of simulation models in serious and entertainment urban water management games, revealing significant gaps in realism but also increased support for modding to enhance accuracy.
Contribution
It provides a comparative analysis of realism in a serious game and an entertainment game, highlighting current limitations and the potential of modding for improvement.
Findings
Significant realism deficits in Cities: Skylines simulation model
ANAWAK's simulation model analyzed for realism
Growing support for modding to improve realism
Abstract
For games used in educational contexts, realism, i.e., the degree of congruence between the simulation models used in the games and the real-world systems represented, is an important characteristic for achieving learning goals well. However, in the past, the realism of especially entertainment games has often been identified as insufficient. Thus, this study is investigating the degree of realism provided by current games. To this purpose, two games in the domain urban water management, a subdomain of environmental engineering (EE), are examined. One is ANAWAK, a web-based serious game on water management and climate change. For ANAWAK, an analysis of the simulation model is conducted. Second, the simulation model of the entertainment game Cities: Skylines (CS) is analyzed. In addition, a survey among CS players (N=61) is conducted. Thereby, different degrees of realism in various EE…
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Taxonomy
TopicsArtificial Intelligence in Games · Educational Games and Gamification · Digital Games and Media
