Methods, strategies and tools to improve citizens’ engagement in the smart cities’ context: A serious games classification

The United Nations Member States defined in 2015 the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, mainly composed of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With the purpose of guaranteeing the economic growth, by tackling urgent calls in terms of climate change, poverty, sustainable consumption and production, in order to improve health and education and to reduce inequality, the SDGs have to be implemented in strategies, plans and daily actions. In particular, the SDG11-“Sustainable cities and communities”, is the one most related to urban development, with the aim to make cities and communities more safe, inclusive, resilient and sustainable. In sustainable or smart cities, the communities, the people’s needs and the user’s awareness are key issues. Recent literature contains several social elements in the urban planning field and recognizes the fundamental role fulfilled by human factors. Users are the focus in delivering new urban services and in achieving sustainability in the longer terms and therefore they are observed as key actors to attain real sustainability. Nowadays, this goal seems closer thanks to the use of new interactive technologies, that allows users to apply innovative learning methods as well as social research methods. Among the learning tools, the Serious Games represent a very promising medium to be adopted in this context. In fact, the aim of this paper is to analyse and discuss the main characters of the Serious Games, to understand the several possibilities and application fields where they can be applied, discovering their potentiality towards sustainability issues. This is possible because one of the most important features of the Serious Games is to make interesting and entertaining issues improving the knowledge of users’ actions. The Serious Games have multiple learning objectives and they can be applied in many areas for all targets of people, by representing a strategic hub to promote educational programs and involve the adoption of new lifestyles based on the idea of sustainable actions and behaviours.