שיחה:Ecologation

Ecologation is an idea for creating a strategic computer game similar in format to the famous “Civilization” with limits to growth-like model (World3) . The purpose of the game is to establish a sustainable society. The game will demonstrate the difficulties and advantages of striving for sustainability, principles of ecology and environmental matters, the hurdles of managing a public struggle, economic thinking, dealing with processes such as consumerism culture and urban sprawl, handling the press, and dealing with corporations and other bodies that harm the environment.

Player characters

There are several possibilities for player characters:

An ordinary citizen who is beginning to understand what sustainability is
An ordinary person who is beginning to understand what the environment is (historically situated in an earlier time than our own)
The owner of a company which manufactures green products
A person leading an environmental organization
A mayor
A head of state

An ordinary citizen can select various courses of action. For example: “dark green” radicalism or eco-anarchism; capitalistic attempts for sustainability; a conservative line of environmental preservation; etc.

Game processes

Time progresses with the game’s turns, and things change according to the decisions of players and the game’s history:

Other characters – especially computer characters (the game is not necessarily a multi-player game) who can advance steps towards sustainability or away from it.
Processes in nature and the environment (processes of: pollution, disturbing the environment, ecology, and geophysics) – these change depending on environmental disturbances and a natural dynamic of their own, such as global warming. These processes are affected by the player’s actions and by environmental and societal processes.
Social processes (political, economic, cultural, and technological) – these change as well and influence the other processes and the possibilities available to the player.

Examples of processes, topics, and phenomena

Population explosion and demographic processes
Economic growth and other economic processes
Globalization
Urbanization
Global warming
Ozone depletion
Debt crisis of the third world
Technological developments
Global water crisis
Peak oil
Pollution
Cancer and other diseases and epidemics
Genetic engineering and other agricultural issues
Raw materials

Additionally, there demonstration of the effect of social phenomena on the difficulty to hold a campaign for sustainability:

Corruption in governments
Multinational corporations
Money as debt
Income gaps
Urban sprawl
Consumption and consumerism culture
Centralization of the press (in the hands of a few powerful bodies)

Demonstration of principles in the game

Influences of environmental disturbances on health, society, and economy
The delay from the time of discovery through analysis, suggestion of a course of action, human reaction, and the response of social or environmental phenomena
Influences of economy on the environment
Combinations between technological abilities and social engineering for accepting sustainability
Principles of sustainability
The importance for sustainability of democracy, decentralization, equality, and other phenomena and values
Technological and environmental limitations to human action

Examples of possible actions

For an ordinary citizen – whether to do various small actions such as recycling bottles or whether to join a green organization. Further in the game, the citizen may have larger abilities, similar to those of the head of a green organization (which the citizen can turn into) such as influencing issues on which green organizations act, which courses of actions to adopt (e.g. graffiti, direct action, enlistment of supporters, arranging conferences, doing research, raising money), whom one can get money from, etc.
For a person in a position of influence – invest money in green or polluting technologies, advancing areas of sustainability such as sustainable transportation or sustainable agriculture. Dealing with competitors (e.g. pro-pollution politicians) or adversaries (e.g. the owner of a polluting factory). Actions with immediate consequences vs. a high initial investment which leads to more substantial results down the road.

Examples of planned or chance events in the game

Pollution in a certain location causes damage to humans, loss of investments, and raising insurance prices
Technological development provides a solution for an environmental problem more cheaply
Technological developments (such as SUV) pollute the environment and damage it considerably
A war over natural resources breaks out
A green party enters the city council or national parliament
Additional decentralized media venues appear (such as blogs)
A strengthening or weakening feedback loop comes into play, or an existing cycle undergoes a phase shift (such as a “climate surprise”)

Nature of the game

The game combines rewards for competition against factors that pollute or delay sustainability with rewards for cooperation with players or factors that advance sustainable alternatives. The game encourages combining more radical actions together with more standard ones, and cooperation between various factors (people in government ministries, company owners, researchers), and a variety of solutions according to time, place, and context (e.g. a different urban design for a green house is required for different places on the globe).

Game end

The game may end in one of three ways:

Humanity becomes extinct
An environmental catastrophe of a large magnitude occurs. In this case, there is a possibility to continue playing if some of the people survive, given the existing remaining technology, etc.
Humanity reaches a sustainable global society

Actions to do in order to advance this project

Expand and describe better
Find partners for development
Find people from the computer games industry that would be interested in participating in such a project – computer game writers, programmers, companies