# A New Measure for Serious Games Evaluation: Gaming Educational Balanced (GEB) Model
###### Abstract  
Serious games have to meet certain characteristics relating to gameplay and educational content to be effective as educational tools. There are some models that evaluate these aspects, but they usually lack a good balance between both ludic and learning requirements, and provide no guide for the design of new games. This study develops the Gaming Educational Balanced (GEB) Model which addresses these two limitations. GEB is based on the Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics framework and the Four Pillars of Educational Games theory. This model defines a metric to evaluate serious games, which can also be followed to guide their subsequent development. This rubric is tested with three indide serious games developed using different genres to raise awareness of mental illnesses. This evaluation revealed two main issues: the three games returned good results for gameplay, but the application of educational content was deficient, due in all likelihood to the lack of expert educators participating in their development. A statistical and machine learning validation of the results is also performed to ensure that the GEB metric features are clearly explained and the players are able to evaluate them correctly. These results underline the usefulness of the new metric tool for identifying game design strengths and weaknesses. Future works will apply this metric to more serious games to further test its effectiveness and to guide the design of new serious games. serious games; game evaluation; game design; metrics +
Footnote †: journal: _Sci._  
Footnote †: journal: _Sci. contents throughout the game contributes to a progressive and an interesting experience. For these reasons, an evaluation system is necessary to assess the instructional capacity of a game. Academic metrics or measures on the design of serious games are essential tools for future research. A review of recent work [5] shows how there already are some studies that divide the evaluation in learning and gaming aspects. Some work focused on the learning evaluation using the Serious Game Design Assessment (SGDA) framework [6]. Other work assessed the gameplay experience, using the Conceptual Research Model [7], and the Games, Motivation and Learning study [8]. However, these studies usually lack one of the two aspects of assessment, or do not consider their balance [5]. Another main inconvenience is that these models offer only qualitative analysis, not allowing a score for the resulting design. Therefore, the objective of this paper is the development of a tool that researchers and educators may use to quantitative value a developed, serious game. The Gaming Educational Balanced Model (GEB) is developed from the Mechanics Dynamics Aesthetics (MDA) framework [9] and the Four Pillars of Educational Games (4 PEG) theory [10]. MDA is focused on the gameplay elements, but it overlooks a game's educational content, and in addition to that, it is not developed for design evaluation content. The 4 PEG theory does evaluate playability and learning aspects in a generalized way. However, this study lacks a detailed evaluation of both aspects and the balance between them. Moreover, it has no easy-to-follow rubric, leaving the scoring to the evaluator's personal decisions and experiences. The main novelty of the new GEB model is that it overcomes these limitations. The GEB model can be used to evaluate the instructional capacity of the game from all perspectives. Compared with previous models, it assigns similar importance to both fun and learning content; the scores of each section are of equal value, and in addition, their distribution and the balance between fun and learning are also rated. This new model defines all the features a game needs to engage a player and to adapt its instructional capacity accordingly. The result is a metric or measure for immediate use to evaluate serious games as educational tools. In addition, as a result of the description of each feature that forms a serious game, the GEB model can also be used as a guide.