Know what you're up against
Challenges & Barriers
The study identified eight categories of challenges that make it difficult to embed and sustain values throughout serious game design, development and implementation. Each card names the barrier, its effect on values, and mitigation strategies drawn from the study's recommendations.
1. Stakeholder conflicts & power imbalances
Design is a multi-party negotiation where not all voices carry equal weight. Clients dominate scope and representation; investor risk-aversion suppresses civic innovation; SMEs and designers clash over accuracy versus engaging play.
Effect on values: Some values are sidelined while others dominate through power or funding; sensitive content is treated cautiously; engagement, efficiency and dignity get traded off against each other.
Mitigations: Make value negotiation explicit from the first scoping conversation; run structured value-mapping and Worlds of Worth discussions; document which values are deliberately deprioritised; give SMEs and clients hands-on prototypes early rather than late-stage reviews.
2. Societal & cultural pressures
Unequal digital access, risk-averse sectors, cross-cultural sensitivities and global-versus-local tensions all constrain which values can be realised for which audiences.
Effect on values: Accessibility and inclusion can never be fully realised for all intended users; experimental approaches meet resistance; localisation costs multiply.
Mitigations: Treat the context of delivery as a design constraint on par with budget; consult communities and SMEs when designing for cultures not your own; decide explicitly which value regime wins when local and international norms conflict.
3. Financial constraints & economic culture
Small budgets directly erode representation, accessibility and mechanical depth. Cost-benefit client logic favours minimal, metrics-driven content; risk-averse funders sideline ambitious projects.
Effect on values: Values like experiential learning and inclusivity are compromised to save money; studios accept misaligned work to survive; civic work relies on cross-subsidy.
Mitigations: Budget participatory design, localisation and evaluation as explicit line items; be alert to constraint-driven creativity (limits sometimes improve designs); make trade-offs consciously and record them.
4. Technical & infrastructural constraints
Hardware limits, engine affordances and LMS integration all shape what is feasible. LMS platforms built for slideshows flatten nuanced outcomes into pass/fail metrics.
Effect on values: Immersion and access are limited by socio-economics; engines nudge teams toward certain mechanics and aesthetics; reflective and experiential values are under-measured.
Mitigations: Choose hardware from the audience's reality (what devices do they actually own?); recognise the engine as a value-shaping actor, not a neutral tool; push for richer data standards such as xAPI, or let games live outside the LMS.
5. Clinical, research & verification challenges
Validated builds must stay stable while markets demand iteration; trials are expensive; long-term impact is nearly unmeasurable; and games face an asymmetric proof burden against incumbent methods that are themselves rarely evaluated.
Effect on values: Only well-resourced projects can substantiate claims; adapting a validated game can invalidate its evidence; civic and aspirational values stay weakly evidenced.
Mitigations: Match the evidence strategy to the strength of the claim; plan proxy measures and honest limitation statements for long-term outcomes; ask clients how well their existing training is evidenced before accepting a double standard.
6. Context of play & institutional cultures
Clinical settings demand low-stimulus, non-competitive environments; schools bring curricula and peer dynamics; workplaces prioritise completion metrics; public contexts must win voluntary attention.
Effect on values: Typical game mechanics conflict with clinical requirements; classroom play risks unintended competition or shaming; deep learning is deprioritised as inefficient.
Mitigations: Analyse the context of play in the discovery phase, not after deployment; engage the clinicians, teachers and managers who own the context; design reward and difficulty systems for the real setting, not an ideal player.
7. Internal tensions & personal constraints
Designers juggle competing worlds of worth, with market and industrial logics frequently dominating. Economic precarity limits the ability to refuse misaligned work; emotional labour on sensitive topics risks burnout.
Effect on values: Constant trade-offs; civic and experimental projects get delayed or shrunk; teams lose capacity to champion values.
Mitigations: Name the trade-offs openly inside the team; use portfolio thinking (some projects fund others); designate an ethical design lead or user advocate to watch for missing values; take psychological safety seriously for the team, not just players.
8. Player interpretation & emergent behaviour
Players reinterpret games in unintended ways — turning non-competitive tasks into competitions, exploiting shortcuts, repurposing mechanics. Designers control a game's value intentions, not its value reception.
Effect on values: Planned value messages can be undermined or redirected; designers must sometimes restrict freedom to protect other values, which is itself a value compromise.
Mitigations: Playtest with real target users early; watch for emergent dynamics (competition, trolling, shortcuts) and decide deliberately whether to embrace or design them out; remember the same game can inspire awe in one player and dread in another.