Regarding the limitations of this study, one could argue that we did not identify all requirements that can be traced back to the described learning theories. Although this is a valid criticism, we believe that for the evaluated Software Engineering simulation games they are appropriate, mainly considering an initial development of a reusable framework.
As one of the aims of this research was to develop a reusable framework, a broad validation mechanism should be carried out. We did not create validation mechanisms to verify requirements from different stakeholders’ viewpoints (instructors and other developers). We only carried out a systematic literature review and an experiment with students using SPIAL. We obtained more positive than negative results. We expect that these initial results will help the investigation of further research questions.
We cannot a priori assume that the results of this study generalize beyond the specific environment of Software Engineering simulation games. We identified requirements exclusively from simulation games of the Software Engineering field. However, we believe that many considerations can be applied to the whole educational simulation game field.