Inclusive simulation game development to enhance Florida research and management: Cedar Key oyster fishery

Simulation games have been an emerging field of research in many disciplines including natural resource management. However, in this discipline, simulation games have primarily been used to fulfill education and communication roles, and they have typically not been used for data collection. For simulation games to find use in data collection for natural resource management research, new design processes and testing criteria will be needed which ensure that players act in the game similarly to the way they interact with real-world natural resource systems. This research pilots such a process. This design process features inclusion of stakeholders in the earliest phases of development (empowering them to define parameters for the simulation game) and novel testing criteria which emphasizes Usability, Relevance, and Credibility of the game. This process involved multiple rounds of collaborative interactions with stakeholders and resulted in a finalized simulation game to be used in future research.

Automated summary

Simulation games have been used in natural resource management for education and communication purposes, but not for data collection. This research introduces a new design process which involves stakeholders and emphasizes usability, relevance, and credibility testing criteria. The result is a finalized simulation game for future research.