Fidelity and Play Model: Balancing Seriousness

Introduction

The continued development of the digital games industry has allowed the influence of games to expand beyond personal entertainment. Indeed, serious games have a purpose beyond fun, related to learning, teaching, training, or changing players’ behavior (Blumberg et al., 2012; Dörner et al., 2016). Serious games present a relatively safe environment to improve knowledge and skills (Haoran et al., 2019). Therefore, professional training considers games great value (Maheu-Cadotte et al., 2018; Ricciardi & Paolis, 2014).

In this context, Bergeron (2006) indicates the importance of content accuracy within serious games, understanding that the game’s theme’s material must be coherent with reality. Bergeron (2006) argues that serious games require a different level of fidelity than entertainment-focused games. Franzwa et al. (2014) suggest that educational content could be inserted into narratives, scenarios, and mechanics that allow players to participate in a space different from the real world. However, space must be similar when the environment or context is crucial to the educational topic. Thus, the serious games’ content needs to reflect reality to achieve the purpose, whether learning, training, or provoking a behavior change. Attributes and behaviors of objects, characters, or phenomena within the storyworld should have a certain level of fidelity. At the same time, serious gaming uses features that make gaming a self-motivating, engaging and fantastic activity.

Fidelity is the extent or level that the virtual environment emulates real-world situations, phenomena, objects, and sensations (Alexander et al., 2005). Therefore, fidelity is a feature of serious gaming related to impersonating and representing a part of reality with a certain level of realism.

The literature presents few game models that deal directly and explicitly with the interplay between fun and fidelity, such as Harteveld’s Triadic Game Design (2011) and Rooney’s Theoretical Framework for Serious Game Design (2012). Rooney (2012) points out that the logic behind fidelity in serious games is based on two factors: (i) pedagogical objectives: providing an effective learning experience, and (ii) game objectives: engaging and influencing players’ immersion. Therefore, it is possible to imagine that play is influenced and directly related to the proximity to the reality that designers seek to attribute to serious gaming. Both models situate fidelity with a certain degree of independence from play.

Rooney’s model considers three types of fidelity: Physical fidelity, such as similarity to a level of visual, audio, controls, and physics aspects with reality. Functional fidelity or the degree to which the in-game equipment acts following its real-world counterpart. Finally, Psychological fidelity represents the level at which the game replicates the psychological factors of the real task.

Belloti, Berta, and De Gloria (2010) point out that methods and instruments direct the design and development of serious games. Mendonça (2015, p. 29) corroborates by stating that models “are entities of scientific practice indispensable for the advancement of science, as they function as human instruments to achieve the approximate understanding of the reality of the world,” serving for the description and scientific explanation to generate knowledge.

This chapter presents a conceptual model to support developers and designers during the development process of serious games that deals with the balance between the game elements and fidelity. The aim is not necessarily to make in-depth criticisms of other models developed to create serious games but to present an approach that highlights the concept of fidelity in making this type of game.