Digital games,developing democracies,and civic engagement: a study of games in Kenya and Nigeria

Introduction

Serious games – game systems with a primary goal beyond entertainment provision (Djaouti et al., 2011; Landers, 2014) – have been designed as tools for education, skills training, and behavior change across a range of industries and now make up a fast-growing segment of the global games market (MarketWatch, 2015). In the current socio-political moment, marked by high levels of institutional distrust and low levels of youth participation, an area of growing interest is the use of games for civic learning and engagement. Research has presented serious games as a tool for civic-focused learning both inside and outside of traditional classrooms, and as an innovative way to foster civic engagement particularly in youth audiences (Barthel, 2013; Bennett, 2007; Kahne et al., 2009; Raphael et al., 2010).

Extant research on serious games has predominately focused on the individual-level effects of in-game content and game mechanics on achieving education and behavior change goals. However, limited empirical evidence exists regarding the transfer of in-game learning to real-world contexts and support for the connection between gameplay and pro-social behavior outside of game sites remains un-established (Connolly et al., 2007; de Freitas, 2006; Engfeldt-Nielsen et al., 2008; Girard et al., 2013). And research on gamification of civic platforms (or the application of game-like affordances to non-game systems) has shown that digital solutions to civic engagement problems that prioritize speed and reach over human interaction may, in some instances, have unintended negative impacts (Hassan, 2017). Furthermore, research on the barriers to civic learning and participation shows that facilitating both is a complex process dependent on a number of individual and social factors (Ballard, 2014; Balsano, 2010; Hildreth, 2012). Thus, determining whether digital games may be an effective tool for achieving civic-oriented education and behavior outcomes necessitates more scholarly attention.

An important area not fully considered in the extant research is the potential of game production and dissemination processes for supporting civic learning and education outcomes. Furthermore, while examples of the production and use of civic engagement games can be found within both established and newer democratic contexts, scholarly research on such games has primarily been limited to the former. Although the production of serious games has been most robust in the so-called Global North (Djaouti et al., 2011), the production of games generally, and of serious games specifically, is growing outside of this historical context. Smaller game developers across Africa, for instance, have begun to create games for a range of social-issue related goals including gender-based violence and environmental issues. And two recent game projects, Haki2 in Kenya and Your Excellency in Nigeria, have been conceptualized by local social change organizations and produced by local game development companies to speak to a local audience about their rights and roles as citizens. Both Kenya and Nigeria are considered developing democracies, and both are home to an emerging gaming industry. And these two games, Haki2 and Your Excellency, are among the first of their kind in such contexts.

This study analyzes these two game projects to further our understanding in two important but understudied areas: the potential for games to facilitate civic learning and engagement outcomes in developing democratic contexts, and the role of game production and dissemination processes in achieving such outcomes. Using in-depth interviews with those responsible for Haki2 and Your Excellency, I analyze the perceived effectiveness and limitations of games for achieving civic learning and engagement goals, and the role of game production and dissemination processes in supporting them. I argue that these processes may play an important role in the potential of digital games to achieve pro-civic outcomes in the context of developing democracies specifically, as well as across democratic contexts. Furthermore, this analysis presents relevant considerations for our understanding of the use of other non-game digital tools designed to achieve civic-oriented goals. The study begins with a review of the literature on serious games and civic engagement, and civic engagement in developing democratic contexts. A methods section, findings and discussion are then presented, concluding with a call for future directions in research.

Literature review

Scholars have analyzed the potential for digital games to contribute to important areas of learning including learner motivation, critical thinking, skill development, ethical decision-making, and empathy; and they have examined their relevance in achieving educational goals both inside and outside of traditional classrooms (Gee, 2007; Jenkins, 2006; Romero et al., 2015; Squire, 2005; Squire and Jenkins, 2003). While scholars have been broadly optimistic about the potential of digital games as educational tools, substantial empirical evidence as to the transferability of in-game learning to non-game environments remains limited (Buckingham and Sefton-Green, 2003; Connolly et al., 2007; de Freitas, 2006; Engfeldt-Nielsen et al., 2008; Girard et al., 2013). Nevertheless, an interest in games for learning, behavior change and skill training has developed across a range of institutions and industries, beyond that of the traditional education system (MarketWatch, 2015). And, as such, the serious games industry – which has historically been dominated by North America, with the United States accounting for the highest share of the market at 54% – has witnessed tremendous growth (MarketWatch, 2015).

Civically engaged citizens are considered to be those who are active participants in the shaping of their communities (Adler and Goggin, 2005; Rothschild, 2016). Scholars have pointed to digital games as an innovative and potentially robust medium for encouraging civic learning and engagement (Barthel, 2013; Bennett, 2007; Kahne et al., 2009; Raphael et al., 2010). This is in part due to a defining characteristic of video games: their ability to simulate complex processes and systems (Bogost, 2007; Salen and Zimmerman, 2004). By presenting a unique space for modeling the complex process of democratic governance games can theoretically both teach players about what government is as well as how it works, which Barthel (2013) argued is necessary for building trust in government. When purposefully designed, digital games may have the potential to foster the ‘knowledge, skills, and dispositions that support effective and responsible participation in civic life’ (Raphael et al., 2010: 203). Furthermore, because digital games can be played on individually owned devices such as smart phones, they have the potential to reach broad audiences without requiring the human or material resources necessary for classroom or other forms of organized learning.

According to Kahne et al., the authors of a 2009 MacArthur Foundation report titled The Civic Potential of Video Games, there are important parallels between the playing of video games and ‘the kinds of civic learning opportunities found to promote civic engagement in other settings’ including ‘simulations of civic and political action, consideration of controversial issues, and participation in groups where members share interests in effective ways’ (p. 6). Drawing on Pew’s 2008 Teens, Video Games, and Civics Survey, which surveyed young people in the United States, the report’s authors presented a connection between civic gaming experiences and interest and engagement in civic and political activity. Thus, the authors encouraged a focus on creating games with civic content and facilitating exposure to civic gaming experiences in order to raise the currently low levels of engagement in youth populations. It should be noted, however, that their findings did not show causality, rather they indicated that those who display interest in civic and political activity also show interest in games focused on such themes.

Barthel (2013) cited the familiarity and accessibility of digital games for youth audiences as an important asset in creating strong civic learning and engagement opportunities. The ways in which youth conceptualize civic engagement also lends itself to a less traditional, more ‘fun’ media format. However, Bennett (2007) argued that a reliance only on digital media as a channel for civic engagement would be a flawed approach, as young people tend to use new digital media forms in ways that are primarily ‘social and entertainment oriented, with only tangential pathways leading to the conventional civic and political worlds’ (p. 10). Nevertheless, ‘game-based civic learning might help to make both traditional and emerging forms of civic action more relevant and engaging for youth if players can apply what they learn to public life beyond the game’ (Raphael et al., 2010: 206, italics added for emphasis). Even if games are able to achieve civic learning goals, it remains to be seen whether players can and will apply what they have learned in the public sphere. Thus, the path from digital game to civic learning and/or civic engagement is not clear or substantiated as yet.

Furthermore, it is relevant to note that games focused on civic learning and engagement can also be designed to sew disinformation, distrust, and political division, all of which are antithetical to the goals of civic education and action considered here. This was the case in the online Flash-based game ‘Hiltendo’, released by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian Kremlin-backed group, in the weeks leading up to the 2016 United States presidential election. The game, which asked players to help presidential candidate Hilary Clinton erase as many emails as possible, was reported on as an example of Russian attempts to sway public opinion in the United States. While the game did not go viral, as it seems was the goal, it is interesting to consider that a game was included as a relevant tool in a broad digital-based effort aimed at foreign influence in a presidential election.

In addition to research on games, recent scholarship has also considered the potential for increasing civic engagement through the gamification of governance systems and platforms (Hassan, 2017). Unlike serious games, gamification ‘is concerned with the utilization of motivational affordances that create value-adding experience in the design of services’ (Hassan, 2017: 249). In other words, gamification adds game-like elements to non-game systems in an attempt to motivate and engage the systems’ users. As Hassan (2017) noted, ‘one of the internal threats to democracy – as a form of human organization – is the lack of civic engagement’ (p. 250). Thus, the gamification of online platforms is presented as way to generate and maintain the civic engagement and community building that is critical to all democratic systems. A variety of information communication technology (ICT)-based civic platforms have been designed in attempts to create new spaces for learning, interaction, and collaboration that would allow citizens opportunities to have an impact on their communities and governance systems (Abdelghaffar and Sameer, 2013; Adler and Goggin, 2005; Hassan, 2017; Lee and Kim, 2014; Sánchez-Nielsen and Lee, 2013).

Interest in using digital platforms to achieve civic learning and engagement goals is based on the potential they present for increasing the speed, efficiency, reach, and inclusivity of civic activities (Gordon et al., 2014; Phang and Kankanhalli, 2008; Sánchez-Nielsen and Lee, 2013; Supendi and Prihatmanto, 2015). Similar to games, if these systems are found to be effective, they could present important opportunities for social organizations that are often limited in their ability to reach and engage with a broad population. However, according to Hassan (2017: 257), many of the ICT-based programs used to support civic engagement,

increasingly end up as having an adverse effect on the civic engagement they were intended to facilitate, thus highlighting the challenges of maintaining quality civic engagement through tools that are mostly speedy and impersonal, and which de-emphasize the value of human interaction. (Gordon et al., 2014)

This important finding also has implications for our understanding of games, as gains in overall reach and speed at the loss of personal, community-centered interaction may negatively impact civic engagement goals.

In summary, the research on games and gamification as tools for facilitating civic learning and engagement has focused on their use in established democratic contexts. Such research has generally analyzed the elements of game content, mechanics, and gamification systems most likely to achieve effective outcomes. In other words, the focus has primarily been limited to the game or gamification system itself. And, to date, research has not been able to empirically substantiate the connection between gameplay, learning, and civic behavior, although it has presented important possibilities. Furthermore, research has shown that ICT-based civic engagement programs may, in some instances, lead to adverse effects on civic action outcomes, and a focus on digital tools alone may not lead to participation in conventional civic spaces.

However, little is known about the potential and limitations of game use for civic learning and engagement goals in the context of developing democracies. One appeal of the use of games within such contexts is that they may be able to help overcome the financial and logistical challenges of reaching potential trainees and participants – issues that often impede the implementation of civic programming in developing democracies (Finkel, 2002) – as they allow information to be disseminated widely across geographic regions and social strata. In addition, they present a presumably fun and engaging opportunity for audiences less interested in civic processes, specifically youth audiences, to engage with such content.

Research on political participation in developing democracies has stressed the role of ‘group memberships, recruitment, and mobilization in determining mass political action in developing democracies (Booth and Richard 1998; Bratton 1999; McDonough, Shin, and Moises 1998)’ (Finkel, 2002: 995). In such contexts, ‘active mobilization efforts’ by groups has been shown to be key to facilitating individual-level civic behavior (Finkel, 2002: 996). As Finkel (2002) found in research on civic engagement programs in two developing democratic contexts, the Dominican Republic and South Africa, program aspects such as a focus on ‘participation or other democratic orientations’, ‘active, participatory teaching methodologies’, and an individual’s frequency of exposure to such programming are important indicators of civic education and engagement outcomes (p. 1015). When these elements are in place, ‘changes in participation can be of substantial magnitude’ (Finkel, 2002: 1015).

As such, this study analyzes the use of digital games to achieve civic education and engagement goals in the context of developing democracies. Rather than to focus only on in-game content and mechanics, the scope of analysis is broadened to include the production and dissemination processes, as I argue that they may present important opportunities for the types of participatory learning, community building, and mobilization efforts relevant to civic engagement programs in developing democratic contexts.

Method

This study utilized in-depth interviews to analyze the development process behind the games (i.e. the context in which they were created, why and how these specific games were conceptualized, etc.), the use of the games (i.e. how games were disseminated, their audience, etc.), and the perceived efficacy of games as tools for civic learning and engagement in the context of developing democracies.

Utilizing Skype, six semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with key individuals at two African organizations, one with offices in Kenya and South Africa, and one in Nigeria, responsible for the development of two civic learning and civic engagement-focused games. The researcher relied on purposive sampling to target relevant individuals (Bryman, 2012), as well as snowball sampling (Manning and Kunkel, 2014) to identify and access participants who played a key role in the game projects. While this is a relatively small sample, it is important to note that because the gaming industry is new to these contexts, there are few organizations currently doing this work locally. Furthermore, the two civic learning and engagement game projects analyzed here represent the first of their kind in these contexts.

Interviews lasted between 1 and 2 hours and were recorded and transcribed for accuracy. Internal Review Board compliance was obtained from the author’s home institution before the study commenced. Interview questions focused on areas such as the origins of the game project; the background of individuals involved in the making of the game; the nature of organizations involved in the game project and their role in shaping the game product; the process for developing game goals, content, and mechanics; the dissemination of the game; game evaluation and effectiveness; and the impacts of serious game production within the organization and the broader national landscape. McCracken’s (1998) three-phase analytic framework was used to analyze the data.

The study focused on two games created for audiences in Kenya and Nigeria. Haki2 was created by the South Africa and Kenya-based organization Afroes for audiences in Kenya. The puzzle and quiz-based game was released in 2013 as a response to the 2008 election violence in Kenya. Players work to solve a puzzle that creates a visual message that deals with one of the game’s primary themes. Players are then asked a quiz question that reinforces the themes in the images. The primary purpose of the game is ‘to minimize the manipulation of youth by politicians; encourage peace, tolerance and national cohesion; as well as facilitate what a conscious Kenyan youth considers in terms of their choice of leadership’ (A1).

The second game, Your Excellency, was created by the Nigerian-based Youth Alive Foundation (YAF). YAF created Your Excellency, an adventure running game, in 2018, in an effort to combat youth apathy in the governance process in Nigeria. Players control a character who must symbolically run for office by running through various environments starting with a small village and moving on to a large city while collecting important resources like citizens’ rights. At certain stages in the game players are presented with a governance-related question dealing with issues including the responsibility of the government to citizens, the importance of voting, the role of citizens in the governance process, and resource allocation. The ultimate goal is to reach the level of governor, in which the player must answer quiz questions from the perspective of the governor. Both Your Excellency and Haki2 were created for mobile phone platforms and were available through online app stores, in addition to being spread through community outreach initiatives.

The production process

For Afroes and YAF, the decision to make a mobile phone game was informed by two key themes: the conceptualization of a youth audience as key to their respective country’s political, social, and economic development and as a response to calls for innovative solutions to governance issues from government and social organizations. According to an Afroes participant, the organization’s primary goal is to

inspire and empower young Africans, with 21^st Century skills – things that you wouldn’t learn in school, but are relevant to being an active participant in the society that you live in, and ultimately to positively influence yourself and your communities. (A2)

Similarly, YAF wants ‘to see that young people are contributing to the development of their community, of their society and even themselves as well’ (Y1). Both organizations see social and political development at local and national levels, as well as their respective country’s overall prosperity, as tied to active engagement by their youth population.

In the context of Nigeria, YAF found that the biggest barrier to youth participation in the civic realm came from a strong sense of apathy:

We went out to the streets because we needed to understand the barriers, why young people are not involved in governance . . . we needed to hear from them . . . Apathy came up as the major reason why youth weren’t involved and interested in government and governance. (Y1)

For Afroes, ensuring that the youth population was able to engage in political processes of their own free will, without manipulation by political and community leaders, was a priority (A1; A2). After the violence surrounding the 2008 election in Kenya, a range of government, business, and civil society organizations developed initiatives to ‘influence the 2013 elections and ensure there’s peace among the youth particularly’ (A1). And Afroes saw a game as a relevant solution that would speak to a youth constituency. Participants from Afroes and YAF spoke at length about digital media preferences in their youth audiences, the high penetration rate of mobile phones, and the need to create solutions that would make a ‘boring’ subject engaging: ‘Two key things were important for us: accessibility and fun at the same time’ (Y3).

While a game-based solution to civic engagement was relevant to addressing a youth audiences’ need for fun and accessibility, the novelty of games as a tool for pro-social problem-solving was also important in gaining financial support for the projects. In Kenya, civic education and the use of technology are two key areas of focus for the government. A participant from Afroes noted that ‘The ministry of Information Communication Technology [in Kenya] has been very active in trying to use ICT as a tool to just uplift the country. So, they’re very supportive of any sort of initiative around that’ (A1). While the government was not actively involved in the making of Haki2, Afroes did receive a grant from the ministry of ICT of Kenya that helped support the development of the game in addition to major funding from Tuvuke, a local collaboration of organizations in the social justice field. And YAF developed Your Excellency in response to a call for proposals for ‘the creation of a novel idea around governance’ (Y1) from an international development organization.

Participants from both organizations spoke at length about the importance of involving the community in the game content and design process along with the importance of having local game development companies create the games. Unlike previous serious game projects for African audiences created by international organizations and game companies (Fisher, 2019), Afroes and YAF emphasized the need to have local organizations solving local problems. Both organizations began their game projects by talking with those in their respective target communities in order to obtain community feedback on game content and mechanics; and both saw peer-to-peer interaction and the building of a game playing community around the issue as key to their projects’ success.

According to one Afroes participant,

We have this thing that’s called the Afroes way, and it is basically our user engagement model where we work directly with the communities we’re targeting, and we work with them from the inception to the end of the game development and then use them for outreach. (A1)

For Afroes, this meant running focus groups in Kibera, a large informal settlement that was one of the key areas in Nairobi, Kenya affected by the 2008 election violence. Afroes gathered together community groups that were ‘trying to bring about change’:

Those are the vulnerable groups, so we worked with them because they were already trying to get the message across of ‘let’s have peace, let’s not do this again’. But understanding what led them to committing violence, what things need to be in place for there to be peace, [we were] working from that as a stand point. (A1)

Through multiple focus group and community meeting sessions, Afroes worked to understand the issues through the perspective of their audience:

Our first workshop was really us hosting a dialogue with them, where we’re not really looking to speak to the game considerations, how we want to format the content of the game . . . We’re just looking to have a dialogue reflecting on the 2008 violence – who were the protagonists, what the role of youth was in that, where do they feel Kenya is. So really creating fertile ground within which the game would exist, [within which] it would make sense. (A2)

A similar process was undertaken by YAF, who began their project by talking with youth ‘on the streets’ about their understanding of and feelings toward the government, its responsibilities, and their rights as citizens. In addition, YAF worked with local civic society organizations (CSO) and youth audiences connected to those CSOs throughout the development of the game to ensure the game content would resonate across the country’s multicultural and multi-religious regions.

Both organizations framed this approach as a way to ensure that game content was relevant to their target audience. However, this approach also presents opportunities for participation in civic learning and engagement programming as outlined by Finkel (2002). By bringing together marginalized communities and asking them to shape civic-focused strategic communication activities for their communities vis-à-vis, the design of a game funded by government and/or other civil society organizations, the process becomes a space for participants to act as civically engaged citizens as defined by Adler and Goggin (2005) and Rothschild (2016).

The organizations also emphasized the importance of working with local game developers to make their games:

We wanted to show that a game for a particular African context could be built by a gaming company in that context, that understood that context . . . The idea was that we wanted it to be locally driven, local thinking. People in the context of the problem, solving the problem in the context. (Y3)

This approach is counter to the serious games projects that have been previously created for African audiences, which relied on game developers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada to make the games to be delivered to African audiences. Alternatively, in the game examples analyzed here, the game developers are themselves citizens of the game’s target context. Thus, the making of the game itself becomes a form of civic participation for those involved as it creates a space for local communities to shape the narrative around governance processes, community needs, and the role of the individual. Participants from Afroes discussed a desire to turn local game consumers into local game developers, so that more local games can be made: ‘The challenge really, is to migrate your consuming constituency to become a developer constituency’ (A1). Similarly, YAF’s commitment to working with local game developers supports their desire to see growth in the game development industry in Nigeria. The games that Nigerians have played in the past have been games made by people who are not African:

In Africa, the first games that we ever saw . . . were not created by Africans or people of African heritage. We’re trying to catch up to that place where we can compete with international game developers or development companies . . . Game developers are increasing every day in Nigeria, in Africa. We are studying games, we are playing more games, we are developing more games actually and this is something we are excited about. (Y4)

The growth of a local gaming industry creates opportunity for local game developers to shape the stories told to local gaming audiences. In this case, that means local game developers creating depictions of civic life within their own communities.

Dissemination through community networks

In addition to offering their games in various online app stores, both organizations used planned community initiatives to help disseminate their games. This was done, in part, because the developers understood that their game was competing in a busy marketplace of game offerings and ensuring that their games got to their intended audiences would take directed work. At Afroes, once Haki2 was completed they took the game to those same community stakeholders that they were working with and,

we train them to become motivators, so they go out into the community using the phone, using the game to have conversations with randoms [sic] on the street to have a chance to let them play the game, let’s discuss a few of the things. (A1)

Mobiv8ors is Afroes’ internal community-driven program used to spread the game to its target audience. The Mobiv8or program trained youth from the community around relevant issues in the game, equipped them with the game, and then sent them out into the community to share the game with people on the street and to discuss the issues raised within it. As research on the use of games in developing contexts has shown, equipping local community educators with a game to show and discuss with community members gives the educators an added degree of credibility, and helps with engagement around sensitive issues (Fisher, 2019). In addition, Afroes held various community engagement sessions: ‘we’d go to schools, we’d go to other community centers and have them play the game and discuss the questions that came up in the game’ (A1).

In developing contexts, games have been found to be an effective way to discuss a range of sensitive social issues, from family planning to gender dynamics (Fisher, 2019). The same is true of the civic engagement games examined here. According to an Afroes participant, using a game allowed them to interrogate culturally contentious issues, like that of patriotism and tribalism, with mediated distance: ‘using games is an easy way to tackle difficult subjects’ (A1). For example,

Haki 2 is a puzzle game. It deals with issues and questions around patriotism. But then, patriotism to you is what? There is a larger, national objective of Kenyan identity, and being patriotic and loyal to Kenya means that you’re patriotic and loyal to the tribe or ethnicity. So we could question those things and do it with greater freedom within a game framework. (A2)

The issues underlying the violence around the 2008 election were complex and layered. The participants from Afroes discussed issues of tribalism, patriotism, ethnic identity, political party affiliation, and manipulation at play. Being able to address all of these issues with an audience spanning various social, cultural, and political groups and identities would not be easy. Afroes saw a game as a way to bridge these divides and prompt conversations around the relevant issues: ‘Sometimes there are topics you don’t want to discuss with anyone, you keep it to yourself, but this is something that allows you to converse with other people’ (A1). The concept of a game as a useful way to ‘break the ice’ around difficult or taboo issues was brought up repeatedly by those at Afroes.

Similarly, YAF utilized a local network of CSO to ensure that their game got into the hands of the various youth groups associated with them. These youth groups provided feedback on the game throughout the development process, and were an evaluation source for determining the game’s effectiveness. In addition, YAF piloted earlier versions of the Your Excellency and released the final iteration of it at the annual Lagos Social Media Week. In this venue, YAF was able to engage with their audiences and obtain their response to the game and what they had learned from it.

Perceived effectiveness and limitations

Both organizations received positive responses about the game from players. In the various community play sessions such as those led by Afroes in schools and by their Mobiv8ors, as well as those held by YAF with CSOs and at Lagos Social Media Week, the organizations obtained qualitative feedback about players’ enjoyment of the game and their perceived learning outcomes. According to a YAF participant, through the CSO groups they received testimonials,

where young people were sharing knowledge that they had derived from the game on issues they never knew before . . . as a result of playing the game, they came to the realization of the fact that they had a role to play as citizens. (Y1)

Those at YAF felt that what they learned from player responses supported their belief that ‘the game has prospect to do more, just the fact that young people have shared that they learned a lot’ (Y1). Participants from both organizations felt optimistic about the possibility for games to encourage learning and to drive social change. But participants also noted that creating and sustaining change would require more than just the game:

One of the challenges we found was that even though [players] had come to the realization that they as a citizen had a role to play and they needed to do something, there was a willingness to do something, there was also the challenge of ‘how do we even begin to do what we need to do?’ There is still a lot of need for custom building for the people, there is still need for a lot of education. It doesn’t just stop at just the game that we have developed. We can’t stop. A whole lot has to be done. (Y1)

YAF participants pointed to infrastructure, resource, and self-efficacy issues as barriers to ensuring game players could and would engage in civic life beyond the game world. To support more opportunities for action, YAF put out a call asking for those who had played the game to submit innovative ideas of how they as citizens could champion social change initiatives in their own communities based off of what they had learned in the game. YAF received approximately 20 submissions and are currently working to support one initiative from a player in the southern part of the country to mobilize young people around issues of taxation and transportation.

Afroes found that while players actively engaged with the puzzle portion of their game, they tended to bypass the quiz questions, which made up the core educational content. Furthermore, they found it difficult to directly establish a link between playing the game and specific learning or behavioral change outcomes. According to one participant, the game was ‘a mechanism through which to raise an issue or to put it then essentially in their minds’, but they recognized that they could not actually facilitate behavior change with a game alone:

We could raise awareness. We could ask people to interrogate their beliefs, and all of that we’re doing towards our third objective, which was to change behavior. But that needs a longer relationship with your constituency and your audience from which you’re able to track and make the claim that they’ve actually done it. (A2)

Furthermore, Afroes decided that some of their key community building strategies did not actually work well for a game. For instance, although they integrated a chat function into the game, almost no players utilized it. As one participant noted, while incorporating certain features and functionality into a game may theoretically be relevant to community building, they are not ‘necessarily the best thing for the game’ (A2). As such, Afroes is considering opportunities for creating additional digital engagement platforms, or ecosystems, around future game projects.

While the organizations had mechanisms for tracking game downloads and player engagement with their games, including the how many game levels a player completed, the number of correct answers to quiz questions, and the time spent in-game sections, these metrics do not allow for a conclusive argument regarding player learning, the transference of in-game learning to non-game contexts, or behavior change. However, the qualitative feedback received from game players pointed to players’ perceived learning, game enjoyment, and, in the case of YAF’s call for player submissions, an interest in translating in-game learning to real-world action. It is important to also note, however, that for both organizations much of the qualitative feedback was presented from organized community play sessions with CSO groups, at Lagos Social Media Week, through the Mobiv8ors program, and through other community activities. As such, it is difficult to isolate the impact of the game only versus the use of the game in a community context that involved discussion and group activity.

Discussion

The findings here show that the production and dissemination processes played an important role in achieving the pro-civic goals of the game projects. Qualitative feedback from game players supports the possibility for raising awareness around issues through gameplay. But the findings also highlight important limitations such as players’ decisions to skip through educational in-game content; the competitive games marketplace that civic-based games are offered in; and the challenges, identified by those in charge of game programs, in tracking player learning and behavior change. The production and dissemination processes utilized here, however, point to important opportunities for direct civic engagement, participatory learning and group mobilization relevant to pro-civic outcomes in developing democratic contexts.

In the Haki2 project in Kenya, engaging stakeholder audiences in conversations about the government, the political process, the challenges facing their communities, and their hopes for future forms of engagement informed how things like tribal associations and political parties were framed in the game and led to an emphasis on citizen unity across the country within game content. It also created a space for democratic deliberation outside of the game space. Not only did community participation help ensure game content would resonate with players, it gave audiences the opportunity to debate their goals and needs as a community and thus became part of the civic learning and engagement process itself.

Once the game was made, it became a catalyst for generating conversations around these community-determined issues through facilitated group play-and-discussion sessions. The use of games in the community outreach programs as analyzed here illuminates their usefulness in generating conversation especially around socially contentious issues. Even if games are determined to be limited in their ability to work as effective stand-alone tools for learning and behavior change their ability to facilitate community conversation around sensitive issues remains relevant.

The deployment of dissemination programs like Afroes’ Mobiv8ors added an important opportunity for engagement beyond traditional individual interaction with the game. By educating a core team of young people about the issues and tasking them with taking the game out into the community, Afroes was able to ensure that more people were exposed to the game and Mobiv8ors were able to reinforce game messaging through conversations. These community-based dissemination programs allowed for a combination of digital message dissemination – which both aids in generating conversation and legitimizing community educators (Fisher, 2019) – alongside participatory learning through discussion, which is important to community building, active mobilization, and civic engagement outcomes in developing democratic contexts (Finkel, 2002). And through calls for player reflection and action post-gameplay, YAF was able to use Your Excellency to catalyze planning and mobilization around civic-issues relevant to the game’s audience.

An emphasis on local solutions to local problems from both organizations points to a desire by communities to control the narratives of their own games – to have Nigerians making games for Nigerians to solve Nigerian-specific problems, and so on. In the cases analyzed here, this was achieved by integrating local stakeholders into the game concept and design process, and by purposefully choosing local game developers to create the work. And both organizations hope to see their local gaming industries grow and convert local game players to game producers. Such growth would allow more citizens to shape the narratives around important social issues for their gaming audiences.

But those at both organizations also realize that the marketplace for games is an increasingly competitive one, and that their funding and production models may have to change in order to sustain their work. Participants identified a need to consider partners outside of the non-profit arena in order to scale up and sustain their projects. The involvement of various sectors in the growth of the serious gaming industry will have important implications for who makes civic learning and engagement (as well as other pro-social) games. Games designed for social and political change goals are produced within a specific socio-historical and economic context and carry value systems and agendas embedded in them by the game designers and the organizations responsible for them – they are not value-neutral technologies (Fernandez-Vara, 2015; Flanagan and Nissenbaum, 2014). Thus, analyzing who is making games and to what ends is relevant as the serious games industry creates ‘new and unexpected points of contact between commercial, amateur, nonprofit, educational, and governmental forces which are shaping the contemporary communications landscape’ (Jenkins, 2006).

Conclusion

This study analyzed serious games for civic learning and engagement in the context of two developing democracies. The point of analysis was broadened beyond a focus on individual-level effects of in-game content and game mechanics. The findings indicate that the production and dissemination processes are important sites for participatory learning, civic engagement, and group mobilization. In the cases analyzed here, this was accomplished through the engagement of marginalized communities in the process of democratic deliberation in determining game agendas; through opportunities for local game developers to tell local stories of democratic engagement and governance; through unique dissemination approaches used to facilitate community discussion; and through calls for mobilization around issues post-gameplay.

As Finkel (2002) argued, participatory learning and engagement efforts by groups are key to facilitating individual-level civic behavior and can result in substantial changes in terms of civic participation in developing democratic contexts. The approach to game production analyzed here allowed for local communities to engage in democratic deliberation and shape the narratives around their rights and roles as citizens, creating direct opportunities for civic engagement (Adler and Goggin, 2005; Rothschild, 2016). Through community-driven dissemination practices, the games facilitated one-on-one and group discussions around the issues raised in the games, including the role of citizens in governance, citizens’ rights, the responsibility of government to its citizens, and the consequences of a unified versus divided society, creating important participatory learning opportunities. And by asking players to respond with plans for action around civic-issues, the games acted as a catalyst for the kind of active mobilization efforts by organizations key to facilitating individual-level civic behavior outcomes (Finkel, 2002).

This study found that the production and dissemination processes of digital games play an important role in the game’s potential to achieve pro-civic outcomes in developing democratic contexts. Whether game content and mechanics can achieve desired learning and engagement outcomes when used in isolation remains unsubstantiated. Thus, while future research should continue to analyze the potential of individual games to achieve learning and behavior change goals, I argue that the focus should be extended to include production and dissemination processes, as they have been shown here to facilitate important civic engagement outcomes. While the potential of these processes was considered within developing democratic contexts specifically, they present opportunities for facilitating civic learning and engagement across democratic contexts and should be studied as such.

New technology is often presented as the key to solving complex social problems. We have seen this narrative play out in spaces such as the international development industry, in which mass communication tools from radio to ICTs have often been framed as the key to development, and in cases such as the Arab Spring in which social media was positioned as the missing piece for successful political mobilization by the masses. However, time and again, we are reminded that these technologies are simply tools and that they carry both possibilities and limitations (Leye, 2009; Ogan et al., 2009; Steeves and Kwami, 2017; Van Niekerk et al., 2011; Wolfsfeld et al., 2013). The same is true of digital games. And when our focus remains too narrowly on the mechanics of the tools themselves, we often lose sight of the meaningful ways humans may employ them. While the focus here is on digital games, these findings are relevant to our consideration of all digital tools used to achieve pro-civic outcomes.

The size of this study presents an important limitation. While the games analyzed here are among the first of their kind in these contexts, the focus on two cases does not permit broad generalizations about the use of games for civic learning and engagement in other developing democratic contexts. However, as this is an emerging area, this case study does point to important areas of consideration for future research. One area in particular is the growth of the serious games industry in the context of developing democracies. How the industry develops, and specifically which organizations shape its development, has important implications for the games that are made and the beneficiaries of them and is an important area of future research. This is especially critical when considering games for civic learning and engagement, as it may impact the framing of civic rights and participation within game agendas. Game effectiveness is an important area of continued research, but we should also consider the possibility of bad actors and the purposeful design and use of games to achieve un-democratic goals.

While this study looked at the areas of game production, dissemination, and their perceived effectiveness and limitations together in order to introduce the research topic, each of these areas is deserving of a focused research agenda going forward.