Gamify the Civic Economy

Gamify the Civic, Circular and Sharing Economy

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The topic of our Redesigning Business master class week was to gamify the three economies (civic, circular and sharing economy). In practice this meant that our goal was to make a pervasive game, so that Symposium visitors can experience the three different types of new economies and the old economy. We worked hard on the concept for three days and discovered that we really needed to work together with all of us to make this experience as great as possible.

We were separated into groups to think up four different games. The fifth group would have to make sure that all games fit together. But we ditched that way of working on concepts into groups, and worked with all of us on one big concept for a game. Then we divided the tasks. And we started testing the game. It was a lot of fun. This is the idea of how it takes place:

Visitors of the Symposium get handed different stickers at the entrance if they want to play our game. The sticker defines in which team you are. You've got to build lego figures in four different economical ways at the four different stands. But there's a catch: you've got to build the lego figure in exactly one minute at all the stands. If you win, you earn a point for your whole team. The idea is that you can play individually, but your work will have consequences for your entire team. You have to work together with strangers for a common goal. If a team wins, the entire team will feel connected to each other. You can experience the four different ways of building lego blocks, which are connected to the economies at their mechanical core. The four stands with the four games are explained below.

CIVIC Economy Stand

A GAME DESIGN PROPOSAL FOR A CIVIC ECONOMY.
The civic economy is a economy-design based on co-operating and local production, local entrepreneurs and local resources.

The civic economy game is a game where you can make a product with local ingredients, but you only have yellow or black ingredients. You have to negotiate with the other local company to trade your leftovers. Together you'll be able to finalize your products. In practice that means that you're located at one stand, which only has yellow lego blocks. You have to run to the other stand with a yellow lego block in your hand (a product you have too much of) and trade it there for a black lego block. You can start building your figure at both stands, but eventually you'll need the leftover resources of the other stand to finish building your figure.

CIRCULAR Economy Stand

A GAME DESIGN PROPOSAL FOR A CIRCULAR ECONOMY.
The circular economy is a economy-design based on reduce, re-use, recycle. Energy must come from renewable sources.

The circular economy game is a game where you can make a product out of waste. You have to filter the waste in order to make a perfect one colored product. If you can't find the right colored resources, you can use another color. But then you'll have less profit. In practice this means that you have to build a figure with one lego block colour. But your resource to build this figure is a bowl filled with all lego colours. You only have one minute to select the right colour from the bowl and to build your lego figure to earn a point.

SHARING Economy Stand

A GAME DESIGN PROPOSAL FOR A SHARING ECONOMY

As the player approaches the table with this game, he or she is instructed to find another player, because this game can only be played in pairs. While most of the other mini games have one source of recourses, this one has two different recourses: one for each player. Both players have a bowl with one type of recourses, but in order to make the shape shown on a picture by the game-master, within 60 seconds, they will have to share their recourses AND deliberate how they are going to build the shape together in a successful way. Winning means that each competing team gets one point, meaning that playing with a player from a different team gets a better joined result than playing with a member from the same team. I’m hoping this will present the players with the concept of sharing to get a better joined benefit.

Imagine that both players are in fact businessmen and the teams are different companies, making a product out of different recourses. The companies do not own all the recourses however. In this case, consequently, the product can only be made by working together and sharing your recourses. Joined benefit is the key here. Of course both businessmen working together can be from the same company, but that will not gain the team more benefit than usual. Working together with another company, however, will gain benefit for both companies working together: 1+1=3!

OLD Economy Stand

A GAME DESIGN PROPOSAL FOR THE OLD ECONOMY
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