Video games and gamification have become key tools of extremist actors’ recruitment arsenal and have taken a central role in their modus operandi. Analyses have pointed out how terrorists employ gaming elements in staging their attacks, or how violent extremists create full-blown video games fraught with hateful narratives and include opportunities to annihilate various social and ethnic groups.
But how about using games for P/CVE purposes? Some serious games (i.e. games used for educational purposes in addition to providing entertainment) have already been developed and rolled out in prevention work, such as Flashpoints, YoungRes and DECOUNT, a German browser game developed in Austria through the framework of an EU-funded research project. The following Insight presents a deeper look into the latter’s production process and evaluation results. It reveals some important lessons learned about the preconditions, opportunities, and potential limits of serious games for P/CVE.
Read more at the Global Network on Extremism and Technology
