Real-world results through gaming (first in a series)

Posted: July 11th, 2008 | Author: Steve | Filed under: Technology | Comments

Computer simulations represent some of the most useful tools ever invented, allowing us to experience all manner of complex, dangerous, expensive or long-term situations in short time periods, and letting us try them out over and over and over again without experiencing the potential consequences. The applications range from nuclear weapons testing to pilot training to immersive gaming environments.

I’ve always loved simulation games, ever since I first discovered SimCity on the original Macintosh during the mid-80s. I’ve played every version of SimCity since then, and watched it grow more and more complex and realistic. There’s something very satisfying and innately human about building your own little empire, watching it grow or even destroying it with virtual disasters. The only problem is that, eventually, you get bored with it. There’s no way to “win”. There’s no goal. After a while, you give up and start over again.

Eventually, I got tired of not having a goal in my games, so I progressed to turn-based simulation/strategy games such as Alpha Centauri and Civilization. I love these games, and they can go on for weeks, with more than a few all-nighters, until you finally “win” and launch your Civ into space or some similar thing. Unfortunately, after a while, you begin to feel that the payoff of a short video sequence (especially after you’ve seen it 10 times), doesn’t seem to match up to the hours and hours you spent playing. Once again, the end result is that you have nothing to show for all of your effort.

So, now I’m in business school, working on my MBA in Sustainable Management. While many of my fellow students focus on biofuels or reducing waste, I think about ways that computer technologies can help us solve some of the masisve sustainability problems we’ve created for ourselves. This inevitably leads me to wonder if simulations and games can somehow aid in this effort. It seems to me, that is so many people are willing to spend hours upon hours on their computers playing games, there’s got to be a way that we can harness some of that creative energy, and turn it into something that makes a real difference in the world.

In the 1960s, futurist Buckminster Fuller saw the potential of simulations to help change the world. He envisioned a whole-world simulation, called the World Game, which would attempt to solve problems by taking a “whole-systems” approach and a worldwide scale, instead of the piecemeal method of individual countries and cities acting alone. A key element to this, and the reason that it was called a “game”, was the ability for regular individuals, not just politicians and powerful people, to be able to participate in the process. The Buckminster Fuler Institute describes it this way: “Fuller wanted a tool that would be accessible to everyone, whose findings would be widely disseminated to the masses through a free press, and which would, through this ground-swell of public vetting and acceptance of solutions to society’s problems, ultimately force the political process to move in the direction that the values, imagination and problem solving skills of those playing the democratically open world game dictated.”

Unfortunately, at the time that Fuller proposed the World Game, the technologies which would allow people to receive and manupulate data about the state of the world in real time did not exist. It would have required that players have access to “better data than their politically elected or appointed counterparts.”

Of course, now, with the existence of the Internet, Wikipedia, YouTube, the 24-hour news cycle and powerful video and audio tools in the hands of the masses, we have finally reached a point where a World Game is possible. As a matter of fact, the immense popularity of the virtual world Second Life, where players spend enormous amounts of their free time, is a testament to the power of simulations on the human psyche, and the willingness of people to explore alternate realities. What are the potential problems that could be solved if these games and simulations could bring about positive change in the real world? Are there potential implications for sustainability?

In my next post, I will describe several different simulation games which are actually making positive differences in the real-world, and introduce you to a young woman who is making a career out of it.