Valuable Games

As President Obama recognized in his Open Government Directive, transparency is only the first step towards a more vibrant democracy. The bigger problem has always been fostering widespread participation. After all, one of the most vexing problems facing today’s government – regulatory capture of an agency by special interests – flourishes despite, or perhaps even because of, the openness of the administrative state. The rulemaking process is open to the citizenry, but the public just doesn’t care – at least not to the degree of special interests.

The response from civic society is to proliferate an alphabet soup of their own special interest groups, from the AARP to the NRA. These organizations serve two vital functions: (1) developing expertise and (2) aggregating collective interest, primarily through membership dues (money) as a proxy.

We’ve reached the limits of this corporate, civil-society-as-special-interest, system. New, digitally networked communities suggest a more fluid and inclusive model of public participation. And, I argue, video games are worth studying for their ability to help us overcome the twin problems of expertise and collective action.

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According to the New York Times, the redesigned Honda Insight offers a built-in ecology game:

Honda has loaded it with an array of gauges and displays intended to coach drivers to be more economical. For instance, the speedometer’s background color changes from blue to green as one’s driving becomes “more environmentally responsible.” Readouts reward the frugal driver with an “eco score”; if you excel, you win a digital trophy surrounded by a wreath.

The author and his colleagues all found that they beat the EPA measures, probably because of the electronic coaching. How’s that for a “game for change” that might actually really change the world? Just keep your eyes on the road and watch out for cyclists, Insight drivers!

Recently I’ve taken an interest in turning real world actions into gameplay, using MyBO as an example. While other games we’ve discussed have focused on “moral learning,” this class of games instead aims to shape or nudge behavior through game-like features.

Well, I’m now working on one such game that would support civic activism, particularly on location-based issues. It emerged out of a campaign to turn Boston into a “Fair Trade City” by convincing local stores and institutions to offer Fair Trade products like coffee, chocolate, and bananas. Because the campaign uses teams to build public support and to persuade stores, it seemed natural to frame the campaign as a game in which the rules scaffold valuable actions. For example, teams win points for identifying stores that already carry Fair Trade and for persuading new stores; however, it costs points to “claim” a store for persuasion, which they can also accumulate by signing on supporters. (Essentially, we want to model the idea of gathering up enough supporters to “attack”

Despite the fact that the software is only 40% complete, participants seem really motivated by it. We’re now seeking funding to launch the project, and would really appreciate any suggestions or feedback you might have on the concept. Our Knight Foundation application is publicly available for comment, and it can use your ideas. Or feel free to contact me directly. I’ll try to post more about the game design and how it intertwines with the real-world goals of the campaign.

It featured minimal graphics, no sound effects, and deeply flawed gameplay. Yet one of the most important game titles of 2008 was played by thousands and helped change the face of American politics. I’m writing about My.BarackObama.com.

Game designer and scholar Ian Bogost considered it a washout election cycle for political games. McCain had his “Pork Invaders” arcade gimmick, and Obama bought ads in Xbox Live (largely an indulgence). But I would argue that 2008 represents a watershed moment for video games, a moment when the medium showed that it can, indeed, change the world. My.BarackObama.com (“MyBO”) didn’t just communicate ideas. It encouraged people to go and do something.

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Nancy Scola of TechPresident recently excoriated a budget calculator put out by NY Governor Patterson, primarily on the ground that it’s “more a dull-edged hatchet than a scalpel” and ignores revenue options. Strangely, though, she ignores the glaring fact that the tool is painfully meaningless to any normal taxpayer. Never mind how ugly it is (though that matters); its numbers are not only grossly general but also inhumanly abstract.

Scola also mentions the Obama-Biden tax calculator, which presents an interesting contrast. It, too, is a calculator — raw numbers stacked up — but it has the distinct engagement advantage of being about your money. Its designers don’t need to provide context or background; presumably, you know exactly what another $1,000 in your pocket would mean.

Such lame attempts at public education (or, as Scola argues, “pretend participation”) ignores the basic problem that for most taxpayers, issues of government taxes and spending are emotional, not rational, and not because we are innumerate but because such systems are too big and too remote for most of us to comprehend. This is a point that Prof. Henry Jenkins makes in his essay, “Complete Freedom of Movement,” which contrasts the play spaces of boys and girls. Whereas a game like Sim City allows players to mold physical territory, in girls’ games and stories like Harriet the Spy “the mapping of the space was only the first step in preparing the ground for a rich saga of life and death, joy and sorrow – the very elements that are totally lacking in most simulation games.”

Stated differently: cutting $10M from the state’s Department of Mental Health means something real for real human beings. The essence of a true public policy debate is to capture human reality in the discussion, not abstract it into numbers. (To those who argue that this would merely lead to an exploding debt, it’s up to deficit hawks to describe the issue as compelling drama, not formal logic).

A different contrast can be made with the Massachusetts Budget Calculator Game, Question 1 edition. As in the original version of this spreadsheet game, each top-level line item is explained with ample text — which requires players to be both numerate and literate. This “game” is no better than Patterson’s effort — except that the point isn’t really to balance the budget. The point is to show just how absurd repealing the budget is. It turns out that it’s pretty much impossible to eliminate the income tax without destroying practically all of the Massachusetts government, which an overwhelming majority of voters ultimately agreed was reckless. Rhetorically, then, the Globe’s budget game was less a simulation and more an exercise in futility, much like the message embedded in Ian Bogost’s “editorial games” for the New York Times.

But what about a game that actually helps the player understand a budget and make difficult tradeoffs? Possibly the best example out there is Budget Hero from American Public Media. (Read Ben Medler’s review). Among its stronger features is the ability to choose particular values that your budget should maximize (e.g. “national security” or “energy independence”). As your budget fulfills those values, the corresponding “badge” fills up. It’s a relatively elegant way to convey the idea that budgets aren’t just abstract numbers but expressions of our collective social values — moral and meaningful choices writ large. It also doesn’t hurt that the design is colorful, noisy, and generally attractive.

Most intriguingly, Budget Hero also compares your results with peers (assuming, as Medler points out, that the players are truthful). It’s a step in the right direction towards an engaged and informed public dialog.

When evaluating “games for change” – whether we mean games that aim at education, social impact, or behavioral modification – the problem of transferability looms large. Sure, maybe we can teach someone to cognitively understand usury or compound interest, but does that really lead the person to walk away from the payday loan store next Thursday? The answer seems to be as murky for “good” behaviors as for violent ones.

Ian Bogost’s piece on “performative play” offers one avenue of response: play the change you wish to see. In other words, gameplay can involve real-world actions that have immediate impact:

Performativity in video games couple gameplay to real-world action. Performative gameplay describes mechanics that change the state of the world through play actions themselves, rather than by inspiring possible future actions through coersion or reflection.

A rudimentary precursor to performative gameplay might include the Prius MPG gauge. No, the gauge does not create gameplay any more than a 20-sided die, but Prius owners can and do make up their own games, challenging themselves to ever-higher mileage achievements. There’s even, you might say, a guild for the MPG-conscious. So before there’s a game, there needs to be a mechanism for gameplay, whether that be a Wii balance board, GPS chip in your shoe, or – who knows – a full-body ARG suit.

Bogost’s piece asserts a basic need for reflective performance: “the player’s conscious understanding of the purpose, effect, and implications of her actions, such that they bear meaning as cultural conditions, not just instrumental contrivances.” But if our goal is to retard energy consumption or encourage saving, I’m not convinced that conscious understanding is necessary.

As Thaler and Sunstein point out in Nudge, sometimes the inputs of our behaviors are unconscious – which is not to imply irrational or stupid. Take the oft-repeated example cited in the book of electricity bills that put smiley faces next to below-average usage and frowny faces next to above-average usage. What’s interesting about this from a game design perspective is that it translates a numerate and rational score into an emotional and social one. We’re not obligated to do anything about that score, as Thaler and Sunstein go to great pains to point out, but those of us whose values correlate with those implied in the scoring system are now more likely to change our behaviors as a result – even though we are literally paying a price for not optimizing our energy usage without that additional nudge.

Given the temporal and technological disconnect between an electricity bill and the means of changing electricity usage, Bogost would be correct that, in the example I just gave, conscious understanding of the effect that turning off the air-conditioning would have on the “score,” as well as the cultural desirability of that score. But another example from Nudge doesn’t require conscious awareness: painting parallel lines on the road that come closer and closer together as the road enters a dangerous curve does far more to cause people to slow down than putting up “Slow or Die” signs. Reflection, in the case of someone about to drive off the road, would just get in the way.

Whether conscious awareness is necessary or not is really just a side point here. I’m fascinated by the possible combination of Nudge with Performative Play and would love to think more about possible avenues for experimentation and implementation.

- Gene Koo

Mary Flanagan (Tiltfactor, Values @ Play) — “a humanistic approach to game design.” How to think about / change existing gameplay to incorporate human values? How to embed human values/principles into design processes such as game design? Some of the values include privacy, creative expression, diversity, cooperation/, commons, community/collective decision making, altruism/sharing, inclusivity?

V@P recreating iterative design process to examine human values.

Studies to test impact of V@P curriculum on designers. “Grow a game” brainstorming cards. (Verbs, Challenges, Games, Values). Stages of Concern Instrument to measure changes in attitudes about values-conscious design.

Findings:

1. The big issue with making activist games is a perceived conflict between fun and the seriousness of the social issue (don’t want to make light of that issue). Going too serious leads to strange unintended consequences, e.g. Jena 6 game ends up seeming racist — therefore need to maintain the values.
2. Students’ three strategies: (1) the unwinnable game; (2) appropriate mainstream games for activist purposes; (3) most difficult to accomplish — invent new mechanics

See V@P public contest — deadline July 1.

Last winter, I started keeping the drain closed in my bathtub when I showered. My initial reason for doing so (other than making my partner go “ewwww”) was to conserve energy by keeping the heat of the water inside the house until it had cooled off. Because hot water is a bigger component of household energy use than most electronic appliances, I thought this would reduce my carbon footprint more drastically than fluorescent light bulbs. (Utterly rational, yes, but nutty, I’ll admit). As it turned out, an unintended side effect of this (other than increasing the chance of mold in the bathroom) was to make me very aware of how much water I used each time I showered. And that, in turn, led me to cut back quite a bit on how long I would shower.*

Watching soapy water rise up to your ankles may not be the makings of a blockbuster game, but it struck me that feedback loops are essential to games. Slap a meter on something, and you’ve got the first component of a game. Consider the Prius’s MPG gauge and how it induces more efficient driving (some have even explicitly made the comparison to video games).

Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler’s new book, Nudge (or essay version), suggests that appropriate feedback, when keyed to a social norm, can overcome humans’ innate irrationality and push us to better behavior. John Tierney of the New York Times has thrown out a challenge: can we create a “nudge” device that will lead us to be more green?

Tierney cites earlier musings by Clive Thompson that ambient information, shared over Facebook, might also generate a powerful push towards conservation.

My question is: Can we push past the “game-like” elements of these proposals and make them into full-out games? How would a game designer approach this challenge?

- Gene Koo

* -Actually, it led me to take “navy showers” and multi-stage navy showers (when shampooing + conditioning).