Gamification of Energy Usage

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Ben Rolfe

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Oct 12, 2011, 3:04:17 AM10/12/11
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Hello, All.

Does anybody know of some good examples (or not-so-good examples) of
game mechanics and dynamics being used to change energy consumption
behaviours? Either aimed at reducing energy use, or shifting from peak
to off-peak (or even black-hat examples which increased energy
consumption, by accident or design).

I'm most interested in reducing (or shifting to off-peak) electricity
use in homes or small business, especially using mobile devices, but I'd
love to hear any examples that don't fall into that area, too (e.g.
Honda's Eco Assist).

Many Thanks,
Ben Rolfe,
Engage Research Lab,
University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia.

Evonne

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Oct 12, 2011, 10:26:02 AM10/12/11
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Look at Growing Energy Labs & their energy computer work out of San Francisco.

Evonne Heyning
about.me/amoration
Interactive Producer
@amoration

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hilary mcvicker

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Oct 12, 2011, 10:31:47 AM10/12/11
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Check out Paladin Studios' Enercites: http://www.enercities.eu/
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Jane Doh

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Oct 12, 2011, 10:35:58 AM10/12/11
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An acquaintance of mine built this some time ago:

http://science.discovery.com/tv/powering-the-future/power-planets-game/

The little guys are super cute, imho.
Jane

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Rilla Khaled

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Oct 12, 2011, 11:02:29 AM10/12/11
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There's the Power House program/game from Stanford on household energy consumption: http://powerhouse.stanford.edu/

And also similar work from Sweden a few years back, in the form of a pervasive game:

http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1501804
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1986843

Cheers,
Rilla

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Martha Garvey

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Oct 12, 2011, 11:20:24 AM10/12/11
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Hi Ben:

I work for an ad agency (Ogilvy), and our team supports the General Services Administration, a federal agency that is in the forefront of making government processes and purchases more sustainable. President Obama actually issued an executive order mandating this. 

Re games, I will poke around for you. 

 I'd also recommend your checking Challenge.gov, the federal platform for contests. This is what I came up with with an "energy" search.

http://challenge.gov/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&terms=energy

And you also might want to put this request out on Govloop.com, which is NOT a federal platform, but is a kind of forward-thinking Facebook for government employees and contractors. There's a fair amount of interest around gamification of all kinds there.

Hope this helps.

Martha



On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 3:04 AM, Ben Rolfe <ben....@gmail.com> wrote:
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CowboyRobot

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Oct 12, 2011, 1:35:53 PM10/12/11
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Super Energy Apocalypse is an energy game that's quite fun. The full
story of it is here:
http://jayisgames.com/super-energy-apocalypse/

The mechanic I've seen that works well is the basic resource-
management one (thing Age of Empires) used in many, many "regular"
games. You have a primary goal (build a building, grow your society,
defeat your enemy, etc.) but are challenged by an outside force (bad
weather, societal ills, an enemy, etc.) and you need to balance the
acquisition of resources with using those resources to achieve the
goal.

The game above is fantastical, but the ideas could easily be made more
realistic.

Matt

Tina Lee

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Oct 12, 2011, 1:50:11 PM10/12/11
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Hi Ben.

I love what Jane McGonigal is doing, but you probably already know about her.

http://janemcgonigal.com/

On an experimental tip, I love one of the projects that came out of one of my Stanford d.school classes in 2010 called "Robots Reboot."  Here's a slide show on it: http://issuu.com/purincess/docs/prototypesslideshow.  The class it came out of was called 'Designing Media that Matters.'  Please let me know if you want the contact info for the project creators and I'll get that to you.

Good luck!

Tina

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Tina Lee

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Oct 12, 2011, 1:52:20 PM10/12/11
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OH!  One more example:  EarthAid.  And they're profitable.  My friend is a founder, so please let me know if you need some more info.

https://www.earthaid.net/

Tina

On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 12:04 AM, Ben Rolfe <ben....@gmail.com> wrote:
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Sebastian Deterding

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Oct 13, 2011, 4:17:04 AM10/13/11
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We had some papers on such projects at the CHI Gamification Workshop this year:
http://gamification-research.org/chi2011/papers/, especially
- Lights Off. Game On. The Kukui Cup: A Dorm Energy Competition
- Leveraging the engagement of games to change energy behavior
The latter refers to "PowerHouse: The Free Energy Game": http://www.freeenergygame.com/portal/
- Google PowerMeter (now to be shut down) served badges: http://blog.google.org/2010/08/take-action-with-google-powermeters-new.html

On a side note, Dan Lockton (http://www.danlockton.com/dwi/Main_Page) is involved in a related, more persuasive design project in the UK:
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/news-items/ne_30411
http://www.carbonculture.net/

As his "Design With Intent" approach includes some "ludic lenses" as well, that might also be interesting.


Best
Sebastian

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Isidor Cardenas

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Oct 13, 2011, 10:28:04 AM10/13/11
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Another one is Alter Space - it's a Facebook game http://www.facebook.com/AlterSpaceGame

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Ben Rolfe

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Oct 16, 2011, 8:36:33 PM10/16/11
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Thanks everyone, for all the great suggestions. A lot of different
angles to follow up.

Many Thanks,
Ben.

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