Learning-game technology seems to have emerged as a medium of social change, assisted by its integrated virtual interactivity
[3] (p. 723), fostering learning and innovation
[4] by offering spaces for collaboration and knowledge creation or co-creation
[5]. They tend to make the learning of concepts enjoyable through exercise, trial and error, reflective action, reiteration, and experimenting. They can be adapted to diverse modes of learning, motivating students to engage in problem-solving, creative thinking, social/peer learning, and agency of innovation
[6][7]. This includes social networking and empowerment to start making deliberate decisions and acting properly, taking into account economic, social, and environmentally sustainable current and future development, which seem to be relevant in a civics-associated capacity
[8][9]. Learning games are considered to “
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”
[10] (p. 14). They have been adapted to diverse teaching and learning settings and disciplines worldwide, including medicine and public health
[11], armed forces training
[12], STEM education
[13], foreign language and culture literature
[14], sustainable resource management
[15], business management
[16], civic education
[17], mathematics
[18], and physics
[19], among others. Endorsing edutainment—including realism/authenticity (designed in an artificial real-life context), social interface/interaction (single- to multi-player), and actions/tasks to be performed (active learner/player with AR/VR game mechanics or more inactive agency)
[20]—has been linked to positive learner knowledge, attitudes, and skills; particularly, both domain- and subject-specific (e.g., computer programming
[21]) and/or transferable/transversal skills
[22]. Additionally, game design that has been performed by the learners/players themselves, as co-creators, has been indicated to encourage reflection (and/or shared reflection) in such a range that improves traditional teaching, learning instruction, and judgment
[23]. In addition, their influence on social behavior appears to be present whenever learners/players discuss the issues raised during gaming with their families, friends, peers, and/or educators, described as “civic chat”
[24]. In this sense, as the latter researcher has suggested, learning games may be conceptualized as socializing actors that have a place in the social interaction of their learners and whose effects should be positioned and explored within daily life and not seen as discrete activities.
Collective/civic action and/or engagement, along with sustainable development—which is closely connected with conflict resolution—incorporated into peace education (among others) may be well-promoted through learning games
[25]. Engaged and informed citizens can contribute to social problem-solving and improve the well-being, prosperity, and equity of local communities, as well as society at a national and international level
[26]. Hence, the target of such gaming ought to facilitate “ongoing and sustained participation in civic life”
[27] (p. 342), drawing on the ongoing worldwide initiative of “re-blossoming civic learning and engagement”
[28] (p. 64) across people’s life spans. Nevertheless, empirical evidence on the assessment of learning games and traditional classroom instruction seems to have reached neither a definite view of learning performance across diverse learner groups and disciplines nor fixed associations between negotiation/conflict and civics/sustainability management, especially in higher education
[29]. In this respect, therefore, by exploring negotiation/conflict management and civics/sustainability in the context of teaching and learning in higher-education graduates (through the use of learning games across university students as proximal to the workforce), researcher might additionally disentangle the learning attributes that learning games might reveal as rising—though not all-embracing—instructional tools for negotiation/conflict and civics/sustainability management teaching and learning in tertiary education and adult-learning contexts.