Simulation and Gaming for Policy Advice

This chapter aims at extending the policy advisor’s toolbox, by presenting the potential of serious games to support the whole spectrum of advisory and analytical processes behind public policymaking. Serious games are structured and interactive exercises, reproducing the elements of reality, within a set of rules, wherein participants individually, or collectively, organize and act to solve a dilemma and experience the effects of their actions through a feedback mechanism, built deliberately into and around the game. The lessons learned (both individual and social) are transferrable to the world outside the game. ‘Multilogue’, the unique ‘simultaneous dialogue of multiple actors in pursuit of a greater understanding of the topic at hand’ (Duke, Richard D. Gaming the future’s language. New York: Sage, 1974), takes place both during the game and the debriefing afterwards, and constitutes a crucial feature of the advisory potential of gaming.

Starting with a brief sketch of the origins and development of serious games, the chapter moves on to their potential as advisory tools, supporting various stages of policymaking processes, as well as educational devices, enhancing the broader quality of advisory systems and processes. It concludes with an introduction of the basic principles of a design methodology for serious games.