According to a survey conducted in the United States of America, 43% of mobile-device-use by children aged between zero and eight years old falls into the sector of educational games. However, that percentage rises to 39% and 51% among children aged 2-4 and 5-8 years, respectively. The question, therefore, is: how can numerous mobile educational games attract the attention of children? Children are attracted to educational games because of various factors including vivid characters and enticing colors, among other elements. This research paper focuses on analyzing the character examples in eight children’s mobile educational games with differently gendered characters. The top elements considered in the eight games include the top-selling games, color distribution, and the hue frequency of every character to obtain the results. The research paper also discusses the characteristics of children’s mobile educational games for different gender characters and the methods of possibilities and considerations for effective design.

The mobile device users have been increasing significantly because of the development of social network system. Mobile educational serious games are occupying a large portion of the serious game market but there is a lack of the quality evaluation elements for providing useful quality evaluation information about educational serious game to user or developer. This study conducted prioritizing the quality elements of mobile educational serious game contents. Then, these elements are decomposed into sub-elements and resulted into a hierarchical model with three levels. To evaluate the priorities among elements, AHP(Analytic Hierarchy Process) is adopted. Additionally, if the evaluation element of this study would be applied into other game contents, it can provide the fundamental information for quality improvement of total mobile educational serious game contents.

최근 주목받고 있는 기능성게임 분야에서는 모바일 게임의 가능성이 특히 커지고 있다. 본 연구는 기존의 게임 및 연구에서 이용자의 특성에 관해 연구하지 못했던 부분에 포커스를 맞추어 이용자의 생각을 알아보고자 했다. 연구목 적을 수행하기 위해 선행연구를 통해 교육용 모바일게임에 관한 이론적인 부분을 찾아내었고, 이를 이용자에게 설문 을 통해 결과를 얻고자 하였다. 연구결과 모바일의 특성인 이동성, 접근성도 높게 나타났으나 이용동기가 가장 큰 이 용자의 특성이었으며, 기능성 또한 특성이 높은 것으로 나왔다. 이에 향후 연구에서는 이용자의 특성 요인과 산업 발 전 요인의 비교를 산업 발전 방향의 측면에서도 살펴보아야 할 것이다.