Designing a 3D Serious Game About Career Pathways in the Games Industry Gavin Baxter, Thomas Hainey, Alan Williams and Julie Black University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, UK gavin.baxter@uws.ac.uk thomas.hainey@uws.ac.uk alan.williams@uws.ac.uk julie.black@uws.ac.uk Abstract: The aim of this paper is to give a detailed overview of the development of a 3D serious game that informs game students about career pathways in the games industry. The paper provides a scoping review on the key principles related to serious game design. These core design issues are reiterated in relation to how the development of the game has adhered to them. The paper illustrates the game’s audit trail in terms of implementation providing a development blueprint for other educators to follow when developing an educational game. The learning outcomes of the game are also accentuated and how the implementation of the game has catered for them. An important aspect of the paper is to highlight how the underlying aspects of game design can accommodate intrinsic content and motivation whilst accommodating the various pedagogical frameworks embedded in the gameplay. The characterising goals of the game have adopted a linear and cyclical approach that allows the player to progress through the gameplay completing formative and summative assessment challenges. The serious game was developed using the Unity game engine adopting a hub and spoke design. A key challenge when designing the game was how to ensure that the game remained endogenous when designing the game’s levels. The design considerations presented in this paper provide a solid implementational framework about how to implement principles of learning and assessment associated with employability skill sets with a specific focus to the games industry. Keywords: Serious games, Games industry, Graduate skill sets, Employability, Career pathways 1. Introduction There appears to be no unanimous definition of what constitutes a serious game. Serious games can be defined in the way they have been developed and also how they are to be played (Dörner et al., 2016). Furthermore, the categorising of games and their intended aims and objectives from a gameplay perspective can be achieved in relation to their primary purpose. For example, according to Connolly et al. (2012), when classifying a game, it is beneficial to reflect upon the precise purpose of the game. For example, many of today’s AAA game industry releases are predominantly developed for a player’s enjoyment, to have fun and accommodate recreation. By way of contrast, games-based learning and serious games are more predominately related to learning and behavioural change. Various definitions of serious games exist in the academic literature. Dörner et al., (2016, p.3), define serious games as “…a digital game created with the intention to entertain and to achieve at least one additional goal (e.g., learning or health). These additional goals are named characterizing goals”. Whilst this definition does imply that serious games have to provide an element of entertainment for the player they should be designed with an additional purpose. A common design component of serious games is the aspect of learning or more specifically the learning outcomes of the game. Van der Linden and van Joolingen (2019, p.16) state that “A serious game is a computer game with the aim of facilitating learning in addition to entertaining users”. This definition coincides with the one proposed by Dörner et al., (2016). Ravyse et al., (2017, p. 32), the primary challenge of a serious game is to “… find a balance between the ludic and skills or knowledge transfer goals so that neither a dominant game mode nor learning mode is present”. This definition summarises one of the main challenges when developing a serious game, namely, which relates to the aspect of game balance. This definition relates to one of the salient principles of game design, namely that in order for the game to be fun, there must be a degree of choice and self-determination for a player to make progress within a game. One of the main challenges when conceptualising an idea for an educational serious game is determining what the role of the educator is within the serous game design and development (SGDD) process (Dimitriadou et al., 2021). This paper provides a case study on the development of a 3D serious game to teach game development students about career pathways in the games industry. At present, the paper does not provide any empirical results but is intended to give an overview of the SGDD process and the justification of the decisions made towards the game’s development. In addition, the paper provides a reflective account in relation to the role of the educator in the design process, the impact of creativity regarding the design team and future recommendations. 60 Proceedings of the 17th European Conference on Games Based Learning, ECGBL 2023