Serious Games as a Learning Tool: A Scope in the Indian Context

Introduction

The game has fascinated all age groups, and people tend to dedicate most of their leisure time to it. The enormous prosperity gaming industry reveals that play and technology can be used to enhance the learning experience. Learning involves new knowledge, skills, understanding, values, etc. and is challenging to measure. Researchers have specifically addressed motivation and play in a learning context and characterised them as individual and interpersonal motivations. The four critical characteristics of individual motivations in any environment are: challenge, curiosity, control, imagination/imaginary (fantasy), and interpersonal motivations are: cooperation, competition, and recognition (Malone & Lepper, 1987). In games, challenges and curiosity are typically generated by the progress's uncertainty, hazard, and unpredictability toward the desired goal. It activates and maintains the desire to continue the activity, and such a feeling of control resulting from freedom makes a player the master of that game.

Games are considered a common form of playing; playing ignites the symbolic use of objects; thus, it is considered the first form of symbolisation and constitutes the first step towards abstract thinking (Rosas, et al., 2003). The game has birthed video games, such as serious games, which can offer virtual environments where players engage in learning activities while carrying out tasks with motivation and enjoyment. Users and envisioned learners can invest time and effort merely to learn new knowledge or skill etc., through entertainment. Serious Game (SG) technology is an effective means to meet a wide variety of tactical training requirements and is particularly well suited to developing the cognitive skills necessary to turn a team into an expert group (Zyda, 2005; Roman & Brown, 2008). SG uses game technologies outside the entertainment (Plecher, et al., 2018). Although its potential has been discussed since 1970, an exploration of SG has been reflected and developed considerably from 2002 in numerous subjects or areas like marketing, education, military etc., and each application is designed in relevance to its specific paradigm (Abt, 1987; Yayilgan, 2010; Mouaheb, Fahli, Moussetad, & Eljamali, 2012; Samčović, 2018; Educational video game, 2022). Here, a mental contest played with or through a computer following context-specific rules that entertain uses meant to further government or corporate training, education, health, public policy, and strategic communication objectives (Zyda, 2005; Cheng, She, & Annetta, 2015; Graafland & Schijven, 2018). It has the potential of harnessing the technology-enhanced game simulation to teach context-specific knowledge or skills etc., to learners, in motivational and engaging aspects in an interactive manner. The chapter mainly discusses the use of SG in the learning domain and clarifies the difference between games, video games and serious games. The chapter explores the Ancient Indian form logic “Tetralemma” and the benefits, potential, and feasibility of SG and various design elements in the Indian context.