Games in ICT Policy Education: Engaging Students and Promoting Critical Thinking

This article explores the use of games to enhance student engagement and understanding in a course on information and communication technology (ICT) policy. ICT policies can often seem abstract to undergraduate students. In response, games offer an integrated way to approach technical and physical complexities alongside social and political dynamics. The course incorporated two games: Moderator Mayhem, a single-player online game simulating content moderation, and CIA: Collect It All, a tabletop card game about information warfare. While acknowledging the limitations of games, such as their potential for oversimplification, I argue that they can significantly enhance student engagement, promote critical thinking, and foster a more comprehensive understanding of complex policy-related issues. Games present promising resources for teaching how and why policy rules and regulations shape actors’ behaviors and strategic interactions.