Educational Opportunities of a Social Network Game - A Review of Possible Learning Outcomes

Social network games (SNG) constitute a game genre with both easy accessibility and low development costs. However, their educational usage is impacted by their reputation as effortless, click-and-reward games. In this case study we apply a taxonomy of learning outcomes in serious games to an elementary SNG (Fliplife). The work is based on long-term gameplay experiences and two online surveys. Each taxonomy component can be mapped successfully to examples from Fliplife. Therefore we argue that SNGs in general, notwithstanding their limited game appeal, can have educational potential. They can be a cost-efficient tool in the context of game-based learning.

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