Superstructuring the future through games

At GDC2009, Jane McGonigal introduced five challenges to game developers (read about them here, in our GDC2009 coverage). One of the more esoteric ideas was to change the world through game mechanics. True to form, the game designer behind the serious ARG World Without Oil and the group at the Institute for the Future, have released the results from their most recent title, Superstruct, in which players were challenged to come up with scenarios to save the world from its end.

Although the threats that were posed were fictional (e.g., chemical warfare, hunger), the output and analysis was thoughtful and relevant to our current crises. Based on more than 1,000 stories submitted for the game by almost 8,000 players worldwide, the team identified three scenarios that could evolve in similar situations. From cnet:

First, "The Long crisis," which "plots a path of slow response, resistance to change, and attempts to maintain current power relationships."

Second, "Emergence," which "follows a course of rapid adaptation from the bottom up, without much unifying direction."

And finally, "The great transition," which "envisions a world remade by technology, a challenge to the planetary dominance of humans as a species."

Superstruct is a crowdsourcing vehicle that uses game mechanics across multiple platforms to engage the players and get them to contribute. As McGonigal argued in her keynote, this is the most powerful asset game developers have in their toolboxes. Here is an example of how to implement it.

Of course, it's a rather good-deedy example, one that might - in its current format - inform non-profits how to use new media for their own goals. It successfully extends the marketing-laden Alternate Reality Gaming genre by allowing players to contribute in a meaningful way. Sure, traditional game makers may not want to approach such lofty ideals, but Superstruct and other games like it indicate that the know-how for engagement that's in developers' heads is being applied in some strange places. Who knows where this kind of thing might end up.