Can Serious Games and AI Rejuvenate Museums?

Abstract

Museums are an important player in the “heritage industry” because they hold a huge potential for the development of tourism, especially in regions far from large cities. Serious games and artificial intelligence are responsible for their new success. This research explores the issues and challenges posed by their introduction. It used a questionnaire distributed to museum directors. Among the benefits of serious games, directors agree on public diversification, improving visitors experience, rejuvenating the museums image, and increase in-site and distant visits. AI is recognized to permit interactive exhibits and personalization of visit experience. Financial and technical issues slow their introduction among the strategies used to increase digital services; cooperation with other museums and other actors are more cited than increasing resources. But a lack of knowledge (not of interest) characterized respondents to this study. The question is no more “Yes or No” to implementation, but “When and How.”