Modirrousta-Galian, Ariana, Prike, Toby, Higham, Philip A., Hinsch, Martin, Nurse, Sarah, Belabbas, Souhila and Bijak, Jakub (2024) Exploring the potential of using a text-based game to inform simulation models of risky migration decisions. Simulation and Gaming, 55 (4), 716-735. (doi:10.1177/10468781241242925).
Abstract
Background: in this paper, we explore the potential of games to collect empirical data for informing agent-based simulation models of migration. To examine the usefulness of game-based approaches, we conducted a simple, yet carefully designed psychological experiment.
Methods: in a preregistered study, we used a novel, immersive experimental setting to investigate the risky migration decisions made by migrants and non-migrants. Participants (284 migrants and 284 non-migrants) played a choice-based interactive fiction game—a fully text-based game where players progress by selecting from a list of possible actions—that involved making three risky migration decisions. In one condition, participants were shown a non-linear progress bar and explicit acknowledgements of the choices they made to promote perceived agency: the feeling that one’s actions have a non-trivial impact on the game. In the other condition, the progress bar was linear, and the explicit acknowledgements were omitted.
Results: our experimental manipulation was successful; participants in the former condition self-reported higher perceived agency than participants in the latter condition, as did migrants compared to non-migrants. Nevertheless, condition and migrant status did not meaningfully affect the risky migration decisions participants made in the game.
Conclusion: these findings indicate that the results of generic studies on risky migration decisions conducted on non-migrants can potentially inform simulation models of migration. However, these findings were obtained from a single experiment, and thus warrant replication and further research before definitive conclusions can be drawn. Furthermore, a simple text-based game may be too superficial to allow deep insights into the idiosyncrasies of migration decision-making. This suggests a possible trade-off between clear interpretability of the results and the usefulness for informing simulation models of complex social processes, such as migration.
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