Evaluating GameDevTycoon for teaching software engineering

Abstract

Academia and industry recognize the effectiveness of teaching Software Engineering through group-based project work supported by lectures discussing software engineering theory. However, while undertaking such project work, only a very small number of students in the team are exposed to team leadership and project management. This is because teams usually struggle with organization and timely task completion, and there is usually no time left to rotate leadership roles. To alleviate this problem, several gaming approaches have been proposed. In this paper, we analyze GameDevTycoon, the most recent addition to such games. We include a gameplay and reflection component in our group-based project course and perform a quantitative analysis of a team management and leadership aspects that the students encountered during their gameplay. We further compare and evaluate GameDevTycoon against five other software engineering-focused games. Our analysis shows the advantages and disadvantages of using GameDevTycoon for teaching project management and highlight further directions towards better inclusion in the curriculum.