A Cataloging Matrix-based Approach to Unify the Classification of Digital Games

The paper proposes a novel unified classification of digital games, i.e., video games and serious games, due to the recent interest of academia and industry for their use to achieve several educational purposes. The paper reviews existing cataloging systems and proposes a five-definition based matrix cataloging including a set of key digital game metadata, unifying existing knowledge and highlighting commonalities between cataloging systems. It offers a higher-level categorization of digital games that retain distinctions where necessary, thus unifying both categories of digital games. Such taxonomy enables the creation of a correlation matrix that will provide a theoretical basis necessary to specify guidelines for the concept design phase of digital games.