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Games

Video Game Hopes To Ensure The Food Security Of The Future

A new breed of video game seeks to change the way we interact with humanity and the environment.

via NPR

Texting donations to aid victims of natural disasters and crowd funding projects on sites such as Kickstarter are just two examples of the rise of altruism borne across the vectors of technology and social media. Should anyone be surprised now that notions of citizenship, doing good, and empathy have spilled over to the video and mobile gaming sector? If anything, we might say it’s about time, especially when packaged in compelling and entertaining ways. This isn’t the first time that studies have noted the power of games to inspire people’s better nature rather than violence and aggression, even within the context of more conventional games involving warfare or slaying.

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Take, for example, Geo-Wiki’s game Cropland Capture as featured on NPR.org. A simple, no-strings registration opens up a free interface both online and on iPhones that provides a real satellite image and a challenge that asks, “Is there any cropland in this red box? One swipes green for “yes,” red for “no,” and blue for “maybe,” then receives points upon successful validation. The game tracks points, and has a leader board showing who’s on top. A 25-week tournament offers prizes such as the newest Samsung Galaxy smartphone to those dominating in the skill of crop identification.

The genius behind this game is that researchers such as Linda See and friends at Geo-Wiki can use the power of the masses to validate the accuracy of existing crop maps in order to streamline the effort to create a more comprehensive and reliable map of the world’s farmland. The objective: to help insure the food security of 2 billion additional humans projected to exist on this earth by the year 2050, in the face of political strife and climate change.

Geo-Wiki’s Cropland Capture vid.

Another vid of Geo-Wiki sketch.

In the first week of the game’s release, players helped survey over 40,389 square miles (65,000 km2) of actual crops. But what do they really know, anyway? Well, according to an academic study released this past summer, data crowd sourced among non-experts is no less reliable than that assembled by experts! Hence, the average shmoe can elevate oneself to data-gatherer status and contribute in a very real way towards helping researchers, policy makers, and humanitarians identify where the world cultivates and sources its food…all by playing a simple and rather addictive game. To keep things interesting, the game also reports back with metrics that helps the player envision just how much cropland he or she has helped confirm exists. For example, correctly identifying farmland in Brazil earned a message telling the writer that she had identified an area the size of Vatican City!

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Equally valuable are new games which, though fictional, exercise the altruistic rather than enterprising, violent, or distraction-seeking tendencies of gamers. Papers, Please, a “Dystopian Document Thriller” by Tokyo resident Lukas Kope(@dukope) now available for download in its full version, pulls the player into the Eastern-Blocesque state of Arstotzka.

Photo of Lucas Kope.

In Artstotzka, one’s mission is to work as a nameless, faceless immigration inspector posted at the border of the neighboring Kolechia. The game opens to bleak, oppressive graphics and a musical score to match, poising the player as just a cog in the wheel, subject to rule after rule. But as the administrative adventure progresses, situations become more and more complex and personal (i.e. involving elements of family), appealing upon the player’s humanity in making tough judgment calls. As a world traveler, Kope’s additional objective in developing the much lauded game was to create a little empathy, maybe, for the person with the stamp at the borders of the real world’s nations. Unusually evocative writing and clever scenario creations make this game, and others like it, something to talk about. And game creators (along with researchers, as detailed above) would be smart to catch what is hopefully a whole new wave of gaming.

To get you started, here’s one list of good doing games by TED, and some words from game designers Mike Mika and Greg Kasavin regarding games with a purpose.