Games for Humanity : How serious games can engage communities for risk-reduction activities

In the past decade, major humanitarian actors such as UNICEF, WFP and the Red Cross Red Crescent movement have started developing serious games for activities ranging from early warning to handwashing. They celebrate their games as a promising channel to engage the communities they work with. This study focuses on non-digital humanitarian games used in disaster and health risk-reduction contexts. It analyzes and categorizes the various techniques these games use to create engagement. It also provides an overview of the functions, examples, and evaluation strategies of humanitarian games. By categorizing the engagement techniques of humanitarian games, the study provides new inputs for the ongoing debate about improving humanitarian community engagement. At the same time, it provides guidance for aspiring practitioners of humanitarian games, which is currently lacking. Methods: A review of literature and facilitation guides from relevant games, as well as eight semi-structured interviews build the core of this study. Interview partners include five humanitarian professionals who work with games, and three game designers who develop games for humanitarian organizations. In addition, the games developed by the interview partners (e.g. UpRiver, Handwashing with Ananse, Risque Péï) serve as small case studies. All data collected in this study is analyzed through a realist game-design lens and the six-step model for qualitative thematic analysis developed by Braun and Clarke (2006). Key findings: The evidence studied suggests three main target audiences for humanitarian games: the general public, humanitarian professionals, and communities who host humanitarian interventions. Given this study’s focus on engaging communities, the emphasis is on the third category. Games catered towards communities serve five main functions: learning, building practical experience, fostering dialogue, changing behaviors, and taking action. Engagement—the need to attract and sustain a participant’s involvement and encourage him or her to interact—is necessary to accomplish all functions, and hence, is a crosscutting concern. The interviews and literature suggest that non-digital disaster and health risk-reduction games use six main techniques to create engagement. The interviewees have confirmed the effectiveness of these six techniques through playtests. However, the study has also found that formal evaluations of humanitarian games and their engagement remain scarce, which underlines the importance of further research. The six engagement techniques identified are: To provide a fun environment which attracts interest and avoids boredom. This is achieved through a combination of attractive visuals, competition, emotions, new experiences, and even mascots. To avoid overwhelming the audience by providing clear goals, simplified content, a feedback system, and sessions tailored to the attention span of players. To ensure that games feel relevant for players by building on local needs, by reflecting everyday realities, and by including elements of local folklore To give players agency—that is the chance to impact a game’s outcome through their decisions—in a safe space. To apply the same rules and consequences to all players. This creates a level playing field that can engage low-status community members who are excluded from traditional engagement channels. To train facilitators who set the stage for games, provide directions, and use exercises to enhance other engagement techniques