During one of my not infrequent evenings of aimless web surfing, I came across an article about Jane McGonigal, a young woman who has predicted that a game developer will win a Nobel Prize by the year 2032. While I’m attracted to the both the arbitrariness of her having chosen the year 2032, the eccentricity of her pursuit of such a precise goal (it doesn’t seem such a stretch to think she’s envisioned herself as the recepient), and just her general geekiness, what struck me about her this prediction was how essential it seems to me.
One of the “games” that Ms. McGonigal has helped invent, is a month-long Alternative Reality Game (which, as all gamers must do, has been acronymed ARG), called World Without Oil. During the month of May, players of the game simulate a world oil crisis. They blog about the crisis, send video, and walk (or bike, or take public transportation) around imagining that oil prices are skyrocketing.
I’m not sure if the game has resulted in any major breakthoughs in how people should deal with an oil crisis (From the time I’ve spent surfing the WWO website, it seems to have merely encouraged an uptick in creative writing, photography, and gardening) but I liked the general tenor of it.
I wonder if we need this sort of game. If the warnings of the entire scientific community can’t stop us from continuing a carbon pollution that very well may destroy the planet we live on, and if the laws of supply and demand don’t stop us soon enough, how can we get everybody to stop?
I mean, seriously, the inconvenience of taking my bike everywhere, while every motorist who comes up behind me raises the hair on my neck, is just too much to do alone. It’s simply not very fun, and I end up in my car again.
But if we all spontaneously started playing a game and tried to make it a new human adventure…