February 22nd and March 25th 2010 – London
Governments and political parties around the world are beginning to see games as the new medium for citizen engagement, particularly with the new generation. In this session we look at leading examples from around the world where the use of gaming technology and serious games by, for and in response to governments and public policy have made an impact. Specifically looking at public policy engagement, politically-theme games, games about elections and budgets, and a host of social issues from the environment to human rights and immigration.
The aims of this event:
We’ll explore a cross section of areas where games are used to engage citizens on important policy and political points of view, these include :
Examples of types of games featured in the session includes
Citizen Engagement
Image from FloodSim
Use of online games for public policy engagement. Examples includes UK Flood Policy: FloodSim is a serious game with the aims to raise awareness of the vast number of issues surrounding flood policy and Government expenditure and to increase citizen engagement through an accessible simulation.
Public Policy and Procedure Engagement
Image from Serious Policy
Examples include: Gordon Brown joins a virtual Paris Hilton, a digital Alistair Darling and a simulated Keira Knightley as 3D characters in the SeriousPolicy Game.
Elections & Budget
Image from Budget Hero
Government games focus either primarily or exclusively on politics. It’s easy to speculate why, Budget Hero, released in 2008, is concerned with the effects of policy. The player sets policy goals and then attempts to achieve them without busting the U.S. federal budget.