Scribd
Upload
245 views3 pages

Contoh Critique Paper 1 2

The paper proposes a methodology to integrate knowledge management into the development of serious games. It describes a three step process: 1) characterizing the knowledge needed in the game, 2) linking the pedagogical scenario to the game scenario, and 3) creating a cognitive model. The methodology was applied to develop a serious game that evolved from a learning software to an economic construction simulator. However, the paper has issues with inconsistently describing the game genre and failing to fully explain the knowledge management methodology.

Uploaded by

Hani Awaliyah
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
245 views3 pages

Contoh Critique Paper 1 2

The paper proposes a methodology to integrate knowledge management into the development of serious games. It describes a three step process: 1) characterizing the knowledge needed in the game, 2) linking the pedagogical scenario to the game scenario, and 3) creating a cognitive model. The methodology was applied to develop a serious game that evolved from a learning software to an economic construction simulator. However, the paper has issues with inconsistently describing the game genre and failing to fully explain the knowledge management methodology.

Uploaded by

Hani Awaliyah
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

Adv.

Information System Critique Paper

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT APPROACH TO SUPPORT A SERIOUS GAME


DEVELOPMENT REVISITED: A CRITIQUE PAPER
Ahmed Heikal Andromeda
March 2013

ABSTRACT
Serious game should be more than a learning software. Three researchers presented their paper on Ninth IEEE
International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies which introduce a methodology to integrate
knowledge management into serious game development. While the topic is novel and provides the beginning of
research in the game development field, the paper have a misunderstanding about the game genre they created
and the methodology itself is not completely explained. Should they address these two problem, the papers
methodology could be used for other serious game development, and even entertainment game development.
Keywords: knowledge, management, game, development, critique
1.

INTRODUCTION
Developing a video game is a complex action. It
is not enough that a developer must know about
programming, but also about graphic design, history
of gaming, market demand, trend, and a design
framework. With so much knowledge required to
develop a successful game, developers need s
knowledge management method to ensure a
successful development.
This leads to this unique paper, Knowledge
Management Approach to Support a Serious Game
Development, by Bruno Capdevila Ibez, Valrie
Boudier, and Jean-Marc Labat. From the first glance,
the topic itself is unique, as if it is trying to combine
an element of information system, the knowledge
management, with a serious game development.
However, for people without a knowledge in gaming
industry, the title can be misleading, as it does not
talk about knowledge management for pure
entertainment game development, but a knowledge
management for a game with specific rules to further
government or corporate training, education, health,
public policy, and strategic communication
objectives, hence the name serious game (Zyda,
2005)
Putting the misleading title aside, the paper is still
intriguing, as its topic is rarely mentioned in the
academic world. Perhaps many of its aspects can be
used in mainstream game development.
2.

SUMMARY
The paper states that there are increasing number
of large companies that wanted to train their
employee using a video game, thus need a company
specialized in creating serious games.
The writer of the paper claims that their product
have evolved several time, from a classic learning
software with a pedagogical scenario, dubbed the
mock-up V0, to a SimCity-style building game,
dubbed the V1.
The games knowledge was built by using three
steps. The first step is to characterize knowledge

needed to be in the game. This is a detailed analysis


of nature of the knowledge, type of knowledge, and
pedagogical objective of knowledge.
The second step is to linking the pedagogical
scenario into the game scenario. This step integrates
the analyzed knowledge in the first step and integrate
it to the game mechanics, thus automatically create a
game rule for the game designers to use.
The third and last step is to create a cognitive
model, which the paper defined as an iterative
analysis based on the identification of the objects and
actions of the domain, their properties and the rules
and conditions which make them interacting within
each other.
After determining the knowledge needed, it must
be integrated to the game by the game designers
along with a pedagogical aspect. The writes then
decide how to use their expert system or data model,
which variables the player is going to control, the
consequences of good or bad actions, rewards,
conditions of failure or victory or frequency of
messages or cut-scenes, and other game play
elements. The writers believe that these are decisions
that directly affect motivation, commitment, thus also
the pedagogical efficiency of the game.
The writers claim that experience gathered over
the course of the project presented in the paper was
gained pragmatically as they lived through the
transition from learning software with a scenario to a
serious game. They admitted that while the
methodology can reduce the risk in the development
of a serious game, it does not guarantee the success
of the fame design since a serious game can fail if it
does not maintain a balance between story and game
play. They conclude the methodology in seven
staged, that is Creation of a Knowledge Base,
Knowledge
Characterization,
Linkage
of
Pedagogical and Game Scenario, Creation of a
cognitive model, Learning Activities Deduction,
Game Genre Definition, and Integration of
knowledge into the game.

Adv. Information System Critique Paper

Their early evaluation shows positive


predisposition from the players in using a serious
game as a support for learning. Additionally, the
players opinion about pedagogical effectiveness of
the game has revealed some gaps in their approach.
However, learners often feel lost and not knowing
what to do. They concluded that they still need
further research to adapt their guidance into a
different learning styles and to different kind of
players. Thus, they can refine the methodology in
order to allow a fine tuning link between pedagogical
and game scenario.
3.

CRITIQUE
The papers methodology to integrate knowledge
management for game content is a rare topic.
Looking for a similar topic in several e-Journal
website will result in either this paper or nothing.
However, this also indicate that the field is not much
explored, thus this papers contribution might be a
beginning for another research related to the field.
For example, the methodology can be applied not
only to other serious games, but to entertainment
game as well, enriching the background story of the
game or enriching the players knowledge to solve a
problem later in the game. The paper is not without
issues. There are several issues that the writer need to
address before the paper is viable for further research.
Rising the issue of the problematic title once
again, the article talks about integrating knowledge
management into an element of gameplay. However,
the journal title can be interpreted as using
knowledge management to develop and sell the
game. The abstract vaguely states that the knowledge
management issued is integration rather than
development on the last sentence.
The abstract itself stated that the game has gone
through 3 successive versions, while in the paper,
only two of them are mentioned: the mock-up V0
and the SimCity-style building game, V1. While it
seems that the paper should talk about the V2, it
was never mentioned on the paper whether they are
talking about V1 or a new unnamed version.
The methodology presented on this paper seems
to have four major stages, Knowledge
Characterization, Linking the Pedagogical Scenario
and the game/utilization scenario, Creation of a
Cognitive Model, and Integrating the Knowledge into
the Game. However, in the conclusion, they present
seven stages, which includes the previous four stages.
This is a major issue since they should announce the
stages first and then explaining each of the stages,
rather than explaining some of the stages first and
announce the stages later. The current way it is, their
explanation seems to halt half-way.
One of the steps mentioned is Game Genre
Definition. There are three major issues regarding
this stage. Since early in second chapter, they define
the V1 as a SimCity-style building game, while in
the end of chapter 3.3, they declared, As we said, we

defined our game-play as an economic construction


simulator. The first issue is that they never declare
the game genre or game-play style early in the paper,
except saying that the V1 is a SimCity-style
building game, and then they define the game as
economic construction simulator. Furthermore, they
enhance the cognitive model to simulate an economic
bank environment. This is a blatant inconsistency of
explaining the games genre, further blurring the
readers understanding of the game they are
developing.
The second issue is that referring a game name as
a genre is a vague way to explain the games genre,
especially in academic world of 2009 where, at the
time of the paper was made, the last SimCity released
was SimCity 4: Rush Hour in 2003. It is a big
question why they did not directly call their game
economic construction simulator, but rather
mention SimCity-style building game early on.
The third, and the biggest issue is about referring
SimCity itself. They declared that the game is an
economic construction simulator of a bank
environment, while SimCity is a building game. This
can lead to readers think that SimCity is an economic
building construction simulator of a bank
environment. In reality, SimCity is a city simulator
game (hence the name), and have nothing to do with
building construction or bank environment. In
SimCity, player acts as the mayor of a city and the
main gameplay is to decide what zone to be used as
road, residential, commercial, industrial, garbage
disposal, power plant, amusements, and many others.
The construction itself is automatic, instantaneous,
and not at all part of the gameplay. The environment
element in SimCity is factored by how player manage
the zone. Industrial zone attracts pollution, while
commercial zone attracts crime. Zoning either of
them near residential will reduce happiness to the
residents and directly affect land value, in which the
game tax for the players income. The economy
aspect of the game is to manage tax at proper level so
growth are spurred, while the income also adequate
to add more infrastructures to the city. The only time
bank are involved in SimCity is when player decided
to take a loan. In conclusion, SimCity are not at all
related to economic building construction simulator
of a bank environment.
4.

CONCLUSION
While the paper failed to state their game genre,
they manage to make a contribution to the less
explored field of knowledge management for game
development. In order to do that, however, the writers
need to explain all seven stages that they mentioned.
The methodology can be used for entertainment game
for future research, because while serious game can
teach employees in expense of corporate budget, an
entertainment game can generate millions of dollars.

Adv. Information System Critique Paper

REFERENCES
Ibez, B.C., Boudier, V., and Labat, J.M. (2009).
Knowledge Management Approach to Support a
Serious Game Development. Presented at Ninth
IEEE International Conference on Advanced
Learning Technologies [Online]. Available:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?tp
=&arnumber=5194265&contentType=Conferenc
e+Publications&searchWithin%3DIbanez%26so
rtType%3Dasc_p_Sequence%26filter%3DAND
%28p_IS_Number%3A5194138%29
Zyda, M. "From visual simulation to virtual reality to
games". USA:IEEE Computer Society, 2005, pp.
25-32.

You might also like