Development of a Serious Game Prototype to Aid Education of Smart Contract Policies

With the growing amount of organisation and businesses adopting innovative technologies to offer advance services rather than just selling products, the financial service providers have also had to consider if and how DEAS could be utilised as a long-term business model.

Parametric insurance products based on new technological innovations (EHAB) in weather risks management can potentially offer preferable and greater solutions for the construction industry in contrast to traditional insurance models. Such smart contract solutions/ policies can potentially aid management of risks related to weather in a more effective manor, settle insurance claims faster and overcome some of the limitations associated to traditional insurances. However, smart contracts solutions/ policies can be complex for customers and stakeholders to understand, limiting them to express their needs and see the true value of such DEAS offers.

Serious Games/ Gamification offers innovative and creative way to communicate engage and educate people. As well as bringing awareness and providing information, a serious game can potentially communicate complex information in a fun and simple manner. Although serious games have seen success in various other industries/ education, only a limited work has been carried out with DEAS. It is yet to determine if such methods can be employed to enhance communication, education and engagement of a DEAS offers for the financial service providers.

The proposed work intends to focus on the enhancement of customer and different stakeholders understanding and education of the value in smart contracts solutions/ policies. In particular this work will employ gamification/ serious games to show risk in different scenarios related to the construction industry for the different stakeholders involved.

This research will investigate if serious games/ gamifications can demonstrate:

• Pros and Cons of taking out a Smart policy
• The benefits to the different stakeholders
• How can weather risks be translated in too time and money
• The effectiveness of the parametric approach

The intended game could simulate the overall process, present the benefits and create a fun engaging experience that the player could relate to, which will help them make a more informed decision related to risk whilst taking out insurance policy.

This research will employ gaming engines/ technologies such as Unity 3D to design and develop a prototype educational game level. The proposed work intends to employ an iterative game design process. This design methodology enables game to be made in incremental stages. Furthermore, the iterative approach would enable the game to be designed and developed through various iterations, repeated play tests and evaluation. The iterative methodology will enable the testing of multiple working versions throughout the process to increase effectiveness and appropriateness of the proposed work. Through a series of surveys and play tests, the proposed game would be evaluated to determine the effectiveness of the game.
The intended project will be carried out in 5 phases. Capture, Brainstorm, Prototype/ Implementation, Playtest and Evaluate. A detailed breakdown of these phases is provided in the project layout below.