The use of games for purposes other than mere entertainment dates back to very ancient stages of humanity itself. In the context of education and learning, the interest of researchers for their uses and effects is a more recent character, around the 1970s when Clark Abt coined the term serious game
[25][1]. He defined serious games as “those that have an explicit and carefully thought-out educational purpose and are not intended to be played primarily for amusement. This does not mean that serious games are not, or should not be, entertaining”
[26][2] (p. 27). This means that “the ‘seriousness’ of these games refers to a content that may well be used as teaching material by teachers”
[27][3] (p. 27). However, the interest in the educational use of games grew especially since the early 2000s when some game designers began looking for strategies to transfer the excitement and joy of playing to the real world
[28][4]. In its origin, this process adopted different names as playful or gameful design, but in 2002 Nick Pelling coined
[29][5] the term gamification to refer to the use of the game in contexts other than the game. Thus, a term that originated in the digital media industry was largely adopted in all potential application areas, including education.
Gamification became increasingly popular in the context of learning, especially through the last decade, such that it is now called gamified learning
[30][6]. As we noted, it could be broadly described as the application of playful thinking, and game mechanics, in non-game contexts to engage users in problem-solving or task completion
[31][7]. As the application of game dynamics grew in the educational context, it also grew the heterogeneity of the approaches and therefore the terms and applications (e.g., serious games, game-based learning, gamified learning, gamification). Despite the fact that it is not unusual to identify gamified learning just with the use of digital games for teaching and learning purposes, the main objective of all these applications is to educate or to train, often combining the experienced enjoyment and the necessary concentration through challenging tasks when the maximum is reached using one’s own skills
[32][8]. As Sailer and Hommer noted
[30][6], these applications share a common game design element toolkit
[33][9], and a focus on adding value beyond entertainment
[24][10], or, in other words, on building meaningful and useful learning based on entertainment and fun. In fact, the research literature on gamified learning and game-based learning overlap, although they are different in nature
[30][6]. The main difference between the both is that whereas gamified learning is fundamentally a learning design change process that adds game elements, game-based learning approaches are a product, in the sense that they involve the design of complete (serious) games
[30][6] (p. 78). These serious games “are typically designed to fulfill the role of instructor by actually providing instructional content to learners”
[34][11]. Thus, the true fundamental key has to do with the use of game mechanics and design elements to generate learning. In this regard, it comes out of a growing body of empirical research that supports that the use of game elements tends to positively impact several types of learning outcomes
[30][6] as well as several valuable issues, such as motivation, and engagement: a specific type or work-related subjective well-being
[35][12] that might be critical for healthy students
[21][13].