Serious Games as an integration tool

During the period of this paper's deadline and of course beyond, there was an extreme wave of migration to Europe. Headlines such as: "Refugees: Austria "already massively overburdened" according to Kurz " (DiePresse.com 2015), "Chancellor expects one million refugees" (Gutschker 2015) or "Mit Baseballschlägern und Brandschatzen gegen Flüchtlinge" (Zeit Online 2015) moved the masses. The accommodation and care of refugees was a ubiquitous topic. But what happens afterwards? Some of the refugees will be sent back, some will leave voluntarily, but some will stay. This book deals with the question of how integration can work and with which technical possibilities we can support it. The mechanisms of digital games are discussed and examined for their applicability as a mechanism of integration: no matter how old or young, which educational class or ethnic group one belongs to, everyone is equal in the game. But serious games can do even more! They can create an imaginary world in which strangers have less to shy away from and so perhaps a way can be found to a new togetherness.