Breakout #5: Using games for community engagement
Facilitator: Mayur Patel, Vice President / Strategic Assessment, Knight Foundation Scribe: Tonia Cochran, Director of Marketing and Communications, Central Carolina Community Foundation
Mayur Patel opened the session by asking the group what they think of when someone says games. Participants threw out the following words:
- Fun
- Active
- Competition
- Tricky way to engage people
- Silly
- Playful
- Spectators
- Billion-dollar industry
- Expensive
Games are in people’s lives every day; this is not a new frontier. Patel lead the group through a gaming exercise. Together the group played Spent, a game created by the Urban Ministries, that helps users understand how the working poor live. Players are challenged to live off of $1,000 a month. The group made decisions about what type of job to take, whether or not to purchase health insurance, etc.
After playing, Patel asked why they created this type of game? Answered included:
- Awareness.
- Makes it more experiential; people learn in different ways.
- To measure the choices that people are making – could impact policy decisions.
- Giving is personal. You feel the ups and downs while playing the game.
Patel then asked how we would you use this game? What does it accomplish? Participants responded with ideas like deploy among high school students, invoking compassion and engaging policy makers and elected officials.
There were several people in the room with gaming experience and they shared their perspectives.
For example, Kaboom created an online project planner to build playgrounds called Our Dream Playground. The problem is that people aren’t using the social media platform that is built in. Why not? The question was asked if you get more points if you share on Facebook. The answer is no. They added badges and points to get people to complete projects, but it hasn’t worked. They decided to target the top 500 projects to help move them further toward completion. The game is tied to their fundraising efforts, volunteer time, etc.
Another example was Community PlanIt, a community-planning site. Users create a cause and then share it via Facebook, etc. to gain supporters. They created a fund base that is divided equally between the top three causes created during the game.
A key question in the conversation was: Is failure a component you build in? Many said yes, including Community PlanIt, which went through many versions.
Engagement Game Lab designs games for civic engagement and provides a space for people to reflect on information, deliberate and get to a more meaningful place. The game itself is part of the actual process. In Detroit, it worked on long-term planning initiative called Detroit Future City. It engaged 30,000 people via email, phone, the game, etc. It was voted to be the most hopeful option among those presented.
There were several questions that the group discussed as being helpful to ask before planning a game including:
- What tactic should you use to engage your community?
- Who are you trying to reach?
- What’s the best way to reach them to get them to do what you want?
- Can you build infrastructure so that others can use it (e.g. open source)
- Does it work with mobile?
Among other factors to consider: the platform, the cost (both financial and time) and the timeline for rolling out a game. It is also helpful to understand the various steps of the process including creating a pilot start date, preparation, prototyping and play testing.
The Knight-funded Battlestorm game was also discussed. It was designed to create an increase in hurricane preparation for young people. Users can create a disaster kit, earn points and upload photos of storms. Designers made assumptions about an expensive component of the game, but it didn’t work. They lost sight of who, why and how to engage.
After launch, they continued prototyping and play testing. Much of the game itself was built after people were interacting with it. The game was not very good at making kids more prepared, but it did help kids talk with their families about these topics. Often, we make assumptions about what it is people are going to learn from the game. However, the most powerful outcome is the preparation and readiness. Games often build soft skills like empathy and awareness.
Other insights included:
- Sundance Institute found that long lead planning had a direct correlation with success. Lesson learned: it is important to build critical mass early.
- Minecraft is a popular learning game for kids. It’s very simple – that may be better depending on whom you are trying to reach. Too many games wind up sitting on a shelf no matter how pretty they are.
- DoSomethinng.org creates campaigns to rally teens around social issues. It created a campaign around teenage pregnancy where a teenager was asked to text the word baby to a prescribed number. The next morning, the teen receives numerous text messages that simulate what it would be like to have a child – e.g. I need food, I need my diaper changed, etc. It’s effective because SMS has a nearly 100% open rate.
Additional resources: