Thirteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

What types of serious games tackling climate change are out there? What are the communicative trends? Do these types of games share similar quality levels across borders? This paper carries out a comparative quality assessment of games produced in two different countries. It looks at the United States (at the forefront of climate change games development) and Spain (experiencing its video game development “golden age,” ranking fourth in Europe and ninth in the world). For that purpose, we develop and put into practice a tool to assess the quality of thirty games (fifteen American and fifteen Spanish) based on the opinion of experts through the Delphi method. Criteria are categorized into identification, narrative, contents, gameplay, and didactics. Results reveal positive trends on how to communicate climate change, including make it local –to avoid psychological distance-, make it visual –to make climate change more real and memorable-, and make it connected – to provide a sense of agency. The total scores also reveal a higher quality level of American serious games on climate change. The paper will provide examples for best practices.