The co-design of educational video games

Co-design is a widely implemented practice in many areas of design and systematically incorporates the ideas, knowledge and interests of stakeholders into the design of an artefact. Literature gives insufficient insight into how the contemporary co-design practices in educational video games (EVG) are structured in the design process. This research aims to resolve that gap by answering the questions: (1) How are the co-design practices of EVG companies structured? (2) Who are the relevant stakeholders of EVG? (3) How are those stakeholders involved in the design process? (4) How do stakeholders influence game design elements (GDE) of EVG? Twelve educational game designers from international companies were asked to describe their co-design practices, define their stakeholders and explain how they are involved. They explored how stakeholders influence specific GDE that impacted game design. After systematically exploring the influence of the stakeholders, the data collected from the ranking and hierarchy exercises were aggregated and contrasted with the interviews for interpretation. The results show that most co-design practices are similarly structured but display varying degrees of stakeholder involvement. While stakeholders and their influence on GDE can vary across projects, some consistencies were found. Three co-design stages involving at least four of the five types of stakeholders were identified.