Developing a Platform for Serious Gaming: Open Innovation through Closed Innovation

In this paper, we draw on open innovation paradigms and Activity Theory to describe how a research organization operates and manages the development of a platform for serious gaming. In particular, we focus our efforts on the relationships formed within the research organization and across the gaming community, and consider whether open innovation practices followed. While open innovation has been explored considerably in relation to its business value and its wide application in gaming, what misses in the literature is a micro-analysis of why and how it occurs through discursive activities. The paper addresses this gap in the literature by offering an understanding of how dialogues develop between individuals that have never developed a gaming platform before neither do they have a working history on this specific field. Discourse analysis is performed to study the initial interactions of actors with each other and the mediating tools they have at their disposal until they manage to develop a platform for serious games which will then attract contributions from the gaming community. The case study provides an instructive example of the innovation process and shows that the innovation process can be comprehensively examined as a shared activity. Addressing the scope of the conference, the paper suggests that Activity Theory, a multi-disciplinary approach, can support organizations and entrepreneurs in developing an effective design strategy for serious applications of games and virtual world technologies and thus addressing the challenges raised by the shift towards immersive world applications.