A proposal for Gamifying the Old Economy

Proposal for gamifying the old economy

We live in a world of limited resources, but not of limited needs. This principle is called scarcity, and is one of the basic principles of the classic economy. Scarcity describes the relation between supply and demand in an economy with limited resources.

The old economy uses the cradle to grave principle, and therefore uses their resources without re-using them. According to that principle, where resources are used only one time, you have to use your resources thoughtfully.

In this Gamification Masterclass, we tried to translate this principle of scarcity into a pervasive game. Each team has a limited pool of resources, with which they have to build different products to gain points. You can choose to build a product with a small amount of resources, but you will not gain many points by doing so. You can also choose to build a product with many resources, and therefore gain more points at once, but you will also use up more resources. The resources are limited for each team, so choose wisely.

The biggest challenge for us in this game will be to pass on this idea of scarcity and thoughtfully using your resources to the players. We have to make it very clear to the players that they can only use their resources one time, and that they have to make decisions that will affect their whole team.