Introduction to the special issue on “Gamification of Industrial Systems”

Abstract

This special issue marks important milestones for the Serious Gaming Society (SGS) and its journal the International Journal of Serious Games. First, this special issue is dedicated to the gamification of industrial systems in the context of the widespread adoption of serious games in many fields such as education, medicine, military and industry. The potential for training by increasing motivation for engaged interaction and the adaptation of behavior has been proven. In addition, new emerging needs for gamification are identified in industry where important benefits could be generated by reducing the product cost and time-to-market. Moreover, in the era of industry 4.0, which combines production methods with the state-of-the art information and communication technologies, serious games could have the potential to promote innovation and increase the resources and the production efficiency. However, despite the significant advances that have been made in game-based approaches to non-game contexts, its potential transition into industrial settings have not been realized. This is mainly due to challenging issues such as the lack of methodologies for modeling industrial scenarios in digital contents representing real industrial systems with high fidelity, operational processes must be fully digitalized to ease the integration of gamification concepts, the adaptation of work environment conditions so that the use of gaming on mobile devices can take place without the interruption of industrial activities.