This book focuses on how to connect the gaming experience to the real world. Looking back at the history of the Simulation and Gaming field, it has offered the solution to social problems such as policy making, decision making for business strategies, education and training, environmental issues, urban planning, or disaster awareness. In other words, Gaming Simulation always has had a close connection to the reality. The interconnected modern societies nowadays have become even more complex and ambiguous, as the UN SDGs goals show. Gaming is one of the suitable tools to suggest ways to achieve our goals in a world of uncertainty. Learning starts by experiencing games and their effects in a safe environment. An important part of the gaming simulation process are methods for a transfer of the game-based learning to and an application within reality. However, connecting the experience to reality is not always facile for all the participants, no matter how comprehensive the debriefing is. In addition to debriefing, further transfer methods and conditions have to be implemented in order to create a real change of behavior and systems. The book's authors tackle the challenge by introducing concrete practices and offering various hints for readers struggling to solve a similar issue. In addition, when applying the experience of gaming, we have to carefully consider several ethical issues, which are also covered in this book.
Toshiko Kikkawa (PhD, Kyoto University) is a professor at Keio University, Japan. She is a social psychologist specializing in risk communication and Simulation & Gaming. She has been a vice-chair of the Japanese Association of Simulation and Gaming (JASAG) since 2015. She was an Executive Board member of the International Simulation and Gaming Association (ISAGA) from 2012 to 2016. Since 2010, she has been an associate editor of The Journal "Simulation & Gaming" and was a guest editor of a special issue of Simulation & Gaming" (vol.50, (5), 2019), "From then to now: Transformation in Simulation & Gaming in Japan." Since 2020, she has been a Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Simulation and Gaming journal--awards: the 2005 JASAG Award of Excellence, the 2009 FOST (Fusion of Science and Technology) Award, and the 2023 JASAG Award.
Willy Christian Kriz, MSc, PhD, is a psychologist and a professor at the FHV University of Vorarlberg, Austria. He is the author/editor of 15 books and around 250 articles (book chapters and articles in scientific journals), has given around 300 lectures and keynotes worldwide, was editor in chief and is currently associate editor of the journal Simulation & Gaming (Sage Publishers), winner of four best paper awards. He is the founder and advisory board member of the Swiss Austrian German Simulation and Gaming Association (SAGSAGA), was a board member of SAGSAGA for 15 years, and an executive board member of ISAGA (International Simulation And Gaming Association) for 12 years and twice president of ISAGA, as well as founding director of the ISAGA Summer School for Simulation Game Design in 2004‐2013. He is currently an advisory board member of ISAGA. He is a juror of the German Simulation Game Award. As a co-founder, he was a member of the supervisory board of Prime Academy AG (Brunnen, Switzerland) and is a co-founder of Sumo Technologies GmbH in Vienna, as well as a partner of Riva Solutions GmbH (Aschheim near Munich); all companies are located in the fields of education, personnel and leadership development, organizational consulting in transformation processes, and technology/IT and focus on gamified and simulation-based applications.
Junkichi Sugiura is a professor at Keio University, Japan. He is a social psychologist specializing in environmental issues, Simulation, and Gaming. He has been a board member of JASAG since 2003 and the Japan Association of Group Dynamics since 2017. In addition, he has been a member of the Japan Psychological Association editorial committee since 2019.
Marieke de Wijse-Van Heeswijk is PhD researcher at Nijmegen school of Management (Radboud University, the Netherlands, promotors Prof. Etienne Rouwette and Prof. Sander Meijerink). She studies the effects of interventions in and around game simulations on learning/change with participants. Marieke is a member of the ISAGA board (from 2004-2008 and 2021 until now) and community (since 2004) and a member of the Dutch ISAGA branch Saganet (since 2004) and NASAGA (since 2020). She has been associate editor of the Simulation and Gaming journal since 2000. She was a guest editor for the special issue of "Facilitation of Simulation Games" in the Game and Simulation Journal. She was a teacher at diverse summer schools (ISAGA 2023, ISAGA 2024, Methodsnet SG summer school in 2022). She teaches and supports education renewal programs in Management Sciences, Business Administration, Urban Planning, and the Law Faculty. She further supports curriculum development at several Dutch and European Universities. In her research she makes use of mixed methods, develops new effect measurement methods and compares the outcomes of different types of effect measurements.
