A Review on Serious Games for Phobia

Abstract: Phobia is a widespread mental illness, and severe phobias can seriously impact patients daily lives. One-session Exposure Treatment (OST) has been used to treat phobias in the early days,but it has many disadvantages. As a new way to treat a phobia, virtual reality exposure therapy(VRET) based on serious games is introduced. There have been much researches in the field of serious games for phobia therapy (SGPT), so this paper presents a detailed review of SGPT from three perspectives. First, SGPT in different stages has different forms with the update and iteration of technology. Therefore, we reviewed the development history of SGPT from the perspective of equipment. Secondly, there is no unified classification framework for a large number of SGPT. So we classified and combed SGPT according to different types of phobias. Finally, most articles on SGPT have studied the therapeutic effects of serious games from a medical perspective, and few have studied serious games from a technical perspective. Therefore, we conducted in-depth research on SGPT from a technical perspective in order to provide technical guidance for the development of SGPT. Accordingly, the challenges facing the existing technology has been explored and listed.