Island World: A Serious Gaming Platform for Data Collection

Military conflicts, natural disasters, social policies, financial opportunities, and resource scarcity are just a few of the factors that can motivate people to leave their homes and seek a better life in a new location. When... [ view full abstract ]

Military conflicts, natural disasters, social policies, financial opportunities, and resource scarcity are just a few of the factors that can motivate people to leave their homes and seek a better life in a new location. When large numbers of people decide to migrate, the demand for resources can overwhelm existing infrastructure and leave governments unable to meet the needs of their people. Policymakers need planning tools that can allow them to understand and predict the movement of people into and out of their borders in order to formulate strategies that mitigate the potential impact. To meet this need, a serious game based tool called Island World was theorized to allow researchers to simulate and then study individuals' reactions to a variety of migration-related scenarios in order to refine predictive migration models.