Video games and sustainability in industrial engineering at Icesi University

Abstract

In the Department of Industrial Engineering at Icesi University, and associated with the Systems Thinking course, video games have been used for 25 years in an applied framework both to develop competencies associated with systemic and critical thinking, as well as those of the Industrial Engineering professional, and also for the development of research on video games, where challenges and pathways are structured that allow students to achieve results associated with the microcurricula of the subjects where the video game is used as a learning tool.

Considering the various commercial video games that have been developed in various undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education courses, which have allowed for the creation of the Game Lab in the Department of Industrial Engineering, a matrix has been developed to evaluate the possibility of consolidating students' awareness and interpretation of sustainability, comparing two proposed axes: at the vertical level, sustainability (from lesser application to greater development) and at the horizontal level, industrial ecology. This matrix has been evaluated and assigned a place for each video game, allowing for a sustainable development path to be identified. It also allows for the video game to be applied in class within the framework of industrial ecology. Students will be able to experience the core message regarding resource use and will develop, through video game play, the consequences of wear and tear, as well as achieving the growth limits of agreed-upon operations. Low-sustainability and low-industrial-ecology video games are fundamentally extractive, not prescriptive. They primarily use resources to produce finished products from raw materials, commodities, or processed products, and achieve goals and objectives. Time constraints are considered a decisive factor in decision-making.

Likewise, conservation video games feature an environmental awareness approach, with some prescriptive elements. That is, although they present themes associated with medium- and long-term, even multi-causal, perspectives, they involve intervention and environmental planning criteria, including characters that operate in the category of Non-Playing Characters. In methodological terms, this incorporation represents an improvement process associated with a course that, among other characteristics, involves understanding practices in the service sector, integrating systems thinking as knowledge and skills, as well as developing awareness of sustainability and industrial ecology in the outcome of professional development. Keywords: video games, sustainability, natural resources, serious games, industrial ecology.