Author: Felicitas Schmittinger & Nayla Saniour
Redesigned by: Carla Alvarez Gonzalez
Can games change how we see urban challenges and take action for the planet?
Play!UC is an initiative that developed a series of serious games and following participatory processes to raise awareness and deal with the individual carbon footprint of young adults. The term āserious gamesā can describe all kinds of physical or digital games that are developed and played not only for entertainment, but have a functional scope as well like education, training or exploration. Different games like a strategy board game that requires players to build an energy network for their region or a smartphone application to navigate vehicles across the urban spaces trying to keep CO2 emissions minimal are meant to raise awareness thorugh gamification and storytelling. Each game addresses a specific social issue within the thematic area of urban carbon footprints. The games are meant to be available for users in their home town or city to create a direct relation to daily behaviour and raise awareness on possibilities to take action as an individual By understanding complex urban problems and how individuals can contribute to their resolution, the games are planned to be combined or followed by participatory processes.
Play!UC was developed between 2014 and 2017 through a partnership of European universities and organizations, including the Green City Lab in Vienna and the Ars Electronica Center. Focused on cities in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Austria, the initiative sought to inspire behavioral change in young adults through the lens of urban carbon footprints. By prototyping and refining serious games, the project created accessible tools for communities to better understand urban sustainability challenges. The initiative aligns with broader policy efforts to engage citizens in collaborative climate action.
The project aims to actively engage adults in serious games to trigger collaboration and behavioural change towards better decision-making in relation to their urban carbon footprint. Even though it mainly targets individuals, the collective games may also lead to group reflections and enable collaborative ability to action.
An innovative approach
By prototyping and experimenting with serious games as an approach to support the understanding of complex urban problems, these games were improved throughout the project. The games are fundamentally different from one another depending on their scope and target group. They range from a mobile application to simulate traffic patterns to a board game that turns the players into leaders of urban development campaigns.
The individual games were developed by different institutions and initiatives, but all of them made the templates and instructions available to support replication.
Key enablers
- Political: Engaged policymakers, open for new suggestions from citizens
- Economic: Funding to buy games and hold the gaming sessions
- Social: Availability and motivation of citizens to play and move things forward
Key inhibiting factors
- Political: Regulatory frameworks and siloes that hinder change and make it difficult for citizens to make actual impact
- Economic: Missing funding for the implementation of planned changes and therefore loss of motivation
- Social: Lack of motivation or perceived benefits from the activity, conflicts of interest and different opinions on climate neutrality and potential solutions within the group
Main positive lessons
- Games can facilitate civic participation
- Complex problems can be broken down
- Enable citizens for self-organization
- Fostering communication in a diverse group
Main barriers found
- Possible lack of representation of entire groups
- Need for guidance and establishment of a dialogue with decision makers
Potential for reapplication and scale-up
Play!UC offers a scalable framework for using serious games to address urban challenges. Its adaptable design allows games to be tailored to different cities, demographics, and sustainability topics. However, successful replication requires fostering partnerships between local governments, experts, and community groups. By linking gameplay insights with actionable policies and participatory processes, other regions can use this approach to inspire behavioral change, promote collaboration, and enhance urban sustainability efforts.
The games are all designed in a way that they can be played in various contexts and situations lining out their potential to make long-term change when the playfully obtained challenges and ideas are then further developed and discussed.
All images on this site are sourced from pie-lab.at. Video content is sourced from The Game Changer Suite and The play!UC Project YouTube channels.