A Formal Approach to Distinguish Games, Toys, Serious Games and Toys, Serious Repurposing and Modding, and Simulators

While the serious game concept has considerably evolved in the last two decades, it still needs to be clearly differentiated from other types of artifacts. Thus, there is a degree of confusion about the relationship between serious games and other related applications, such as simulators or the repurposing of entertainment games within educational practices for most outside the domain. This article proposes a formal approach toward classifying games, toys, serious games, serious toys, serious repurposing and modding, and simulators. The aim of this theoretical work is twofold. First, on a practical level, this approach aims at helping actors from different ecosystems, such as health, to differentiate between these various devices and use them to their best advantage. Second, from a research perspective, based on a formal approach, our work aims to contribute to developing a taxonomy for gamified intervention with serious purposes. This formal approach demonstrates that unique combinations can be proposed to distinguish each kind of application. In this context, serious games can be seen as a specific purpose and not as a synonym for other existing applications.