Future Energy Networks and the Role of Interactive Gaming as Simulation

Hook, Alan and Barrios-O'Neill, Danielle (2015) Future Energy Networks and the Role of Interactive Gaming as Simulation. In: Renewable Futures RIXC, 8-10 October, 2015, Riga, Latvia.

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Abstract / Summary

This paper, situated in the proceduralist discourse on games, will argue that games can operate as a form of Critical or Speculative Design (Dunne and Raby 2013). We argue that games can, through the process of procedural rhetoric (Bogost 2008), work as reflective and critical objects or systems to help to engage players in a dialogue to help to support necessary transitions to more sustainable energy practices. Games as a critical object, inscribed with social values, ethics and logics (Barr, Noble, & Biddle, 2007, Bogost 2008, Flanagan 2009 et al ) could work to increase systems thinking in players and help to promote a sustainable management of energy resources. We pose games as an engagement tool to help the public increase their systems literacy, and understand that there are complex links between the individual power consumptions inside households, energy policies from governments, decisions made around grid management from private organizations and the adoption of sustainable energy resources such as wind, solar and bio-fuels. The paper will address energy as a social resource, connected to, and governed by a complex and dynamic system of data, decisions, technologies and people. Games could be a perfect tool to help encourage sustainable energy practices, adoption of renewable energy products and technologies, proactive energy management, and energy efficiency.

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