Teaching Fundamental Concepts of Industrial Engineering and Management by Using Examples from the Video Game Industry

Abstract

This paper presents experiences from using examples from the video game industry to teach fundamental concepts and theories of Industrial Engineering and Management. The video game console Dreamcast, which was released by SEGA in Japan in 1998, and discontinued in 2001, was used as a case to let engineering students analyze the trajectory of the console. A framework based on First Principles of Instruction was used to analyze the learning situation. The material consists of students' assignment and evaluations, and the responsible teacher's reflections. Students generally appreciated the opportunity to apply skills to explain a real-world problem. Pre-knowledge of the context was different between male and female students, which needs to be taken into consideration in future variants of the course. Teacher's reflections summarized advantages with this as using a market that many students are familiar with, that has a history related to engineering and economics, and differentiated market. Disadvantages included formal limitations in course duration and evaluation, but also lack of peer-reviewed material, and the reputation of video-games as just being “toys”.