Project information

StatusFinalist
URLGo to website
CategoryEnvironment
Energy and alternative technologies
CountryUnited States
Operational areasUrban
Target groupsYouth, Women, Men, Seniors
Fixed connectionDSL, IDSN, Cable
Wireless connectionWiFi
Access pointsHome
InteractLandline Phone, Desktop Computer, Cellphone, Laptop, PDA

Project location

Random images Challenge 2008

World Without Oil

  • Brief description
  • World Without Oil is a serious game for the public good. It enlists the "collective imagination" of Internet users to confront a real-world issue: the risk our oil dependency poses to the climate and our quality of life. It is the first "alternate reality game" to use immersive, collaborative storytelling to build a vivid, realistic vision of a possible future -- one in which the challenges of addressing climate change and developing alternative energy technologies are met through coordinated imagination and collective action.
  • Vision, Objectives and Goals
  • The serious game for the public good simulated the first 32 weeks of a global oil shock. It began April 30, ended June 1, 2007. The alternate reality event “altered the reality”of players’ attitudes, perceptions, actions concerning oil dependence and energy security.

    Produced by the design team at Writerguy, WORLD WITHOUT OIL leveraged the power of people connected by the Internet to imagine the actual events of an oil shortage, document them and innovate solutions. As the event concluded on Jun 1, 2007, the grassroots website at www.worldwithoutoil.org had captured a vivid and visceral picture of what our next oil shock might look like, in the form of 1500 blog pages, videos, images and audio clips documenting the crisis. “We provided the narrative skeleton,” WWO Creative Director Ken Eklund said. “The players fleshed out the story of this alternate reality game.”

     

    In true Web 2.0 style, the creative expressions can be found on YouTube, Flickr, LiveVideo, Blogger, iTunes, and other sites all over the Internet. Around 60,000 visitors followed the game’s events, and over 1800 people have signed on to participate, representing every major U.S. metro area and region plus Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Iraq, the Netherlands, Holland, Brazil, Poland, Norway, and Venezuela. One index of its reach: a Google search for the phrase “world without oil” will return 150,000 pertinent results.

    An event archive and learning space has been created at www.worldwithoutoil.org to continue engaging a global audience in the imagining an alternate energy reality.

    Besides creating a rich documentary of an oil shock, WORLD WITHOUT OIL became a forum for citizens to share life-changing ideas that transport seamlessly into real life. “Our game structure gives people ‘permission’ to think seriously about a future they might otherwise avoid thinking about at all,” says Eklund. As a result of the game, people are thinking about their neighbors and communities in new ways, and planting gardens, going to farmer’s markets, using bicycles and transit, and otherwise questioning their dependence on cheap, plentiful oil. “Usually gaming takes time away from accomplishing useful things in real life,” a player nicknamed Ironmonkey wrote, “but WWO taught me a lot, lowered my electric bill, and got me focused on doing things that matter to me.” An observer wrote, “It raises questions on almost everything we have been taking for granted. The whole focus of everyday life changes. It turns out we can indeed live a simpler but more fulfilling life in a world without oil.” 

    WORLD WITHOUT OIL breaks new ground in serious gaming (gaming with a serious purpose). By weaving fact and fiction closely together, and entrusting players with power over the story, the game creates the sort of immersive collaborative engagement that makes for effective learning.

     

    The creators have transformed the game’s content into a durable archive at www.worldwithoutoil.org, with threads that new visitors such as students, policy-makers, and local leaders can follow to experience the event and mine it for collective wisdom.

  • How does ICT contribute to the organisational objectives

  • HOW CAN A COMPUTER GAME HELP US PREPARE FOR THE FUTURE?

    WORLD WITHOUT OIL aims to use collaborative ICT to help fill a huge gap in our nation's thinking about oil and the economy. As people everywhere grapple with the problem of growing global demand for petroleum, no one has a clear picture of oil availability in the future, nor is there a clear picture of what will happen when demand inevitably outstrips supply. That will depend in large part upon how well people prepare, cooperate, and collectively create solutions. By playing it out in a serious way, the game aims to apply collective intelligence and imagination to the problem in advance, and to create a record that has value for educators, policymakers, and the common people to help anticipate the future and prevent its worst outcomes. “Play it, before you live it.”

    WORLD WITHOUT OIL is built to harness the collaborative problem-solving capabilities of Interent users, by engaging all of the leading Web 2.0 platforms: blogs, user-created videos, wikis, data aggregators, mobile Web, RSS feeds, tagging software, and more.

    The nerve center for this ICT-driven experience of realistic oil crisis is at worldwithoutoil.org, with links to citizen stories posted all over the Internet.

  • Transferability
  • A serious alternate reality game like World Without Oil can be developed by any small private group or public organization. Funding requirements and technology skill requirements are extremely low, on an order of about 90% lower costs and no advanced visual design or programming skills required, in comparison with other kinds of online games that might be graphics-intensive or algorithm-based.
  • Project summary

  • WORLD WITHOUT OIL was created to leverage the power of people connected by the Internet to imagine the actual events of an oil shortage, and then to find innovative solutions. WORLD WITHOUT OIL created a vivid and visceral picture of an oil shock by inviting anyone to contribute their views and adding them to the 1500-plus blog pages, images, phone calls and videos already linked to by www.worldwithoutoil.org.

    Almost 60,000 regular visitors followed the emerging story, with more player voices being added every day. A full-on “Web 2.0” effort, WORLD WITHOUT OIL exists as a growing network of thousands of interconnected sites and content caches across the Internet, as bloggers on LiveJournal or WordPress link to channels on YouTube or podcasts on iTunes.

    The ICT strategy, including the experimental use of networked game design to engage global users in collaborative problem-solving, is described in further detail in a seven minute video about the project. The video can be watched here:

    http://www.writerguy.com/worldwithoutoil/