Gamification in Construction: principles, methods, and applications to construction simulation

The construction industry has shown a growing interest in digital approaches based on gamification and/or the use of game engines as simulation environments over the past two decades, following the spread of BIM, digital simulations, and virtual reality in the AECO field, as well as their multi-purpose development. Initially, game-based technologies were primarily employed in this industry as an alternate and immersive method of expressing design to clients, future users, and, in certain instances, as a clever method of training construction workers. The increased interoperability of gaming engines (such as Unity 3D) with prevalent BIM platforms has also spurred a trend towards hybrid approaches between the video game industry and the construction industry, with the aim of creating development environments for digital twins. As a result, game engines are currently seen as an emergent component of the digital building ecosystem, and numerous construction-oriented applications are accessible for both research and practise. In this context, the current stage of digital gamification in construction was examined by tracing the categories of existing research applications in the construction sector, with an emphasis on their reuse in ordinary building practise. This was followed by the study and implementation of structured gamification approaches for the simulation of construction processes, with the goal of educating and training the new protagonist of the April update to Legislative Decree 81/08. A portion of the effort entailed concentrating on challenges such as 1) organising training needs; 2) generating narratives that are suited to the setting and meet the needs; 3) interacting with equipment for immersive virtual reality. The work concludes with the application of the workflow-structured requirements to the hypothesised training case study