[-empyre-] playing World Without Oil

[Claudia Pederson]

Thanks Ken! you previously mentioned that you are interested in bringing
these simulations to educational settings. Was WWO used in this way?

On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 11:57 PM, Ken Eklund <writerguy at writerguy.com>wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Claudia wrote:
>
> I'm familiar with WORLD WITHOUT OIL, though I'm not sure how the game
> mechanics play out beyond the website form, or the discursive exchanges.
> Could you please speak a bit about this? (I have the impression that the
> game is distinct from Mcgonnical's work, which plays off and online). Do
> players play out these simulations?
>
> /Ken: Sure, Claudia. The unfortunate thing is, it's much harder to explain
> WWO than it was to play WWO!
>
> I wrote earlier:
>
> "WORLD WITHOUT OIL had a simple device: on its website (
> worldwithoutoil.org) it pretended that an oil crisis had started. It
> presented itself as the "citizen nerve center" for the crisis and asked
> people to send in reports describing their lives in the oil shortage. It
> immersed itself in its own fiction, i.e., the metadata about the project
> was made unobtrusive; once you acquainted yourself with what the project
> really was you need never be reminded again.
>
> "In WORLD WITHOUT OIL, then, there was no separate representation of
> yourself, and there were no rules. Because the gamemakers set examples with
> themselves in the game, people understood they were to try to imagine their
> lives realistically in an oil shortage. This proved to be a very fun
> experience for a lot of people and a very powerful experience for some."
>
> That describes the game mechanic, but of course it smacks of describing
> soccer as "kicking a ball around." Back in the day, I prepared a blog to
> relate a typical game observer's experience -- it's here, at Gretchen Sans
> Petrole: http://gretchenv.wordpress.com
>
> If Gretchen had been a player, she would have included an account of her
> contributions: she would talk about the things she read and observations of
> her own life that inspired each story she created, the responses each of
> her contributions got from the game and from other players, and the effect
> they had on the game narrative as a whole. It would be readily translatable
> into typical game lingo: "I entered the game, and I made this move, which
> kinda worked, so then I tried this, and that worked better, and then I did
> a bunch more, and in the end I felt really good because I played really
> well and added some elements to our victory."
>
> Re: Jane McGonigal
> WORLD WITHOUT OIL is and isn't distinct from what Jane does. It certainly
> isn't distinct in that Jane was a part of WWO -- she became available
> shortly before the game rolled out and I immediately hired her on. You can
> see her touch in the "missions" and "awards" that we added to WWO after she
> came on board. It is distinct from her work in its core gameplay mechanic
> of "immersive participatory narrative" as described above.
>
> Re: "Do players play out these simulations?"
> In their heads, certainly. Which is all you need.
>
>
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