Playing with Sustainability

Gaming has become a huge part of the modern lifestyle (though my last console was a Nintendo, as in NES). Many think it's wasted time.

Can we harness the raw manpower going into gaming (from players and creators) to drive the sustainability movement (and maybe even policy and behavior, both consumer and business) forward? Both serious games and alternate reality games may help.

Back in April 2007, World Without Oil opened my eyes to this concept. I dabbled in it a bit, blogging and being a passive spectator. My primary solution was to get rid of my four liter Jeep and take public transpo, buy more from the farmers market, support local businesses, and protest. But now that my social media chops are better, my participation (and many other's) would be richer. I hope to see more of these types of alternate reality games.

IBM just launched a virtual reality game called PowerUp. They used some nice social media elements too, check out the video news release.

There are a variety of other online sustainability games popping up, most based on the SIMS model, or simple boardgames. These don't capitalize on social networks, which is where the power is (as SETI knows), but it's an example of using games to solve societal problems and educate folks. They can be effective communication tools, but I'm more interested in an exponential jump in solutions and behavior change, which requires more freedom and user generated content. Here are some of the simpler ones:

Stop Disasters from the UN/ISDR.

Chevron's Energyville.

ElectroCity from Genesis Energy (New Zealand).

Consumer Consequences from American Public Media.

The Cloud Institute for Sustainability and Union of Concerned Scientists have very simple ones.