In The News


 Subscribe to G4C In the News RSS


Previous entry: Raid Gaza Advocacy Game
Next entry: Quest to Learn Opens: Leveraging Games-based Learning for Public Education



Playing with (and Changing) Environmental Data

Posted by Hsing Wei on 01-27-09

Professor Byron Reeves has studied the high levels of player engagement with games like World of Warcraft.  What does the human behavior and team effort in games like WOW imply for real-life, large social goals like reducing energy consumption? 


The Stanford professor has been sharing a hypothetical game that has apparently already piqued the interest of some utility companies and the Department of Energy. 

Real world smart meters meet MMOGs in this game concept, where energy saved in real life is experienced as points (and perhaps other rewards) in the virtual world. 

A potentially impactful idea of tying real world actions to virtual incentives (we more often think about it the other way around). 


Some LA high school students have already been playing with environmental data through a game developed by another Californian professor, Greg Niemeyer.  With Black Cloud, students solved cryptic clues to locate fourteen wireless air sensors placed around South Los Angeles, each one sending data on the air quality of that location to a website.  Niemeyer believes such game play creates an emotional and personal connection to the data.  Not to mention, a desire to change alarming data.  After discovering their classroom had carbon dioxide levels ten times higher than recommended amounts, the students bought more plants.


Additional coverage here and here.

Comments