An Exploration of Emerging Trends: Future Threat Scenarios and Potential P/CVE Solutions

The intersection between (violent) extremism and video-gaming – spanning across jihadist, far-right, and other types of ideologies – is long-standing, though is an area that is under-researched. As part of this, particularly scant attention has been paid to the concept of ‘gamification’; i.e. the application of gaming and game-design principles within non-gaming environments (Lakhani and Wiedlitzka, 2022). The primary objective of this paper is to provide an understanding of how (violent) extremism can be (and has been) gamified, what emerging trends and future scenarios might be, and the potential influence (or lack thereof) that gamification has within (violent) extremism. On the basis of this understanding, this paper will outline relevant concepts of action through preventing and countering (violent) extremism (P/CVE) considerations and offer policy (and broader) recommendations on how to account for the element of gamification and potential actions to prevent and counter the phenomenon.