December 10, 2012

This week’s National Conversation blog post was submitted by Chris Noonan, a Senior Program Advisor at the Institute for Energy & Sustainability. His post discusses how digital gaming can be used to as a powerful tool for those working on smart growth issues.

Digital gaming is more popular than ever—which could be good news for the environment if we can use digital games to help address our environmental problems. Recent releases like Assassin’s Creed III and Halo IV sold out almost immediately, indicating an increasing high demand for digital games. Gaming is appealing to an ever wider range of cultures, genders and age groups and this popularity has driven a sharp increase in the sophistication and complexity of gaming. The games of only a decade or so ago, like Pac-Man or Pong, pale in comparison to the real-time, multi-player, high-definition graphics of modern games.

Digital games are also a powerful learning tool. Gaming provides essential life lessons, like teamwork, winning and losing, and the benefits of practice, coaching and skill. Because gaming has an important influence on learning, it is also important that we balance our ninja and car theft fantasies with games that can have productive, nonviolent resolution. Gaming is essentially a challenge: It is pitting yourself or your team against an opponent or obstacle and working to overcome that challenge. Overcoming the challenge also requires developing skills, using tools, and working within the rules of the game. This is similar in many ways to the health and sustainability challenges that confront our planet. Keeping water and air clean, providing transportation choices and more are all challenges that could greatly benefit from gaming scenarios. Gaming can also help players develop the skills and experiences necessary for solving these complex, real-world challenges. There is tremendous room for growth in connecting real-world challenges with gaming. One of the more well-known examples is SimCity, in which players build and govern their own city, but have to respond to real-world challenges like crime, pollution, finances, and natural disasters. SimCity provides valuable opportunities for young and old alike to learn about techniques for managing a successful city. Practically Green, a Boston based start-up, created a web-based platform in which different real world acts of sustainability are verified, measured and scored. These scores can then be used to compete against your friends, family or other users. Games like SimCity and Practically Green provide scenarios of real-world challenges that can help prepare people to respond to problems like pollution, resource scarcity and unsustainable development. Sustainability gaming will have to compete with the flash and dazzle of games like Assassins Creed and Halo, but gaming is one tool to help ensure that our planet doesn't end up looking like "Vice-City.". Read Chris Noonan's paper on achieving sustainability goals through digital gaming. How can digital gaming be used to advance sustainability? Please provide your comments on this interesting and evolving topic.