Previous entry: Game Lets Teens Try Their Hand at Running Nonprofits | Home Page | Next entry: Twitter and notes from the G4C Festival
PBS/ITVS Fund Game About Oil
Posted by Hsing Wei on 05-07-07Branching out beyond broadcast, PBS funded the recently launched online game by pioneering game designer Jane McGonigal, World Without Oil
The alternate reality game lets players, “Play it, before you live it.” Participants contribute original online blog, video, image, and audio stories about the oil shock and are ranked according to the realisticness of the portrayal. Like other social change games, World Without Oil draws attention to a public issue with the hopes of making a positive impact on it. Its design reflects that aim, the game places value on player-created communities, collaborative stories, and collective efforts. We must all stay tuned to watch how many of those communtities, interactions, and missions stay intact.
Quoting the game website, “That will depend in large part upon how well people prepare, cooperate, and collectively create solutions. By playing it out in a serious way, the game aims to apply collective intelligence and imagination to the problem in advance, and to create a record that has value for educators, policymakers, and the common people to help anticipate the future and prevent its worst outcomes.”
