Playing for a purpose: A systematic review and framework for gamified sustainability interventions in urban built environments

作者：Arghavan Akbarieh, Qi Han, Alexander Klippel · 发表于：Results in Engineering · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1016/j.rineng.2025.105277 · 被引用次数：7 · 研究领域：Urban Transport and Accessibility、Educational Games and Gamification

Gamification and serious games are increasingly used to address sustainability challenges in the urban built environment. These innovative solutions offer interactive, experiential approaches to knowledge transfer, behaviour change, and stakeholder engagement. However, research on their application remains fragmented and lacks strategic direction. There is no up-to-date, holistic insight into existing gamified interventions, the topics they explore, or their effectiveness. Given the growing interest in this field, the absence of a structured understanding leads to misaligned research and ineffective problem targeting. Furthermore, the intended purposes behind gamified approaches are not well documented. Few theoretical frameworks exist to classify expected outcomes, limiting the development of comparable, thematically interoperable gamified interventions even within a single domain. To address this, the present study conducted a systematic literature review of 133 studies, mapping thematic gaps and overrepresented areas within gamified applications in urban sustainability and circularity (excluding mobility and transportation). The analysis identifies matured research areas such as energy efficiency and urban planning, while critical themes such as natural hazards remain underexplored. Following the review, the novel Three Purposes for Gamified Interventions (3P) Framework is presented, which categorises gamified interventions into three distinct purposes: Pedagogy (education...