World Without Oil (WWO) is an
alternate reality game (ARG) created to call attention to, spark dialogue about, plan for and engineer solutions to a possible near-future global oil shortage, post
peak oil. It was the creation of
San Jose game writer and designer
Ken Eklund, and
ARG
Arg or ARG may refer to:
Places
*''Arg'' () means "citadel" in Persian, and may refer to:
**Arg, Iran, a village in Fars Province, Iran
**Arg (Kabul), presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan
**Arg, South Khorasan, a village in South Khorasan P ...
veterans
Jane McGonigal
Jane McGonigal (born October 21, 1977) is an American author, game designer, and researcher. McGonigal advocates using mobile and digital technology to channel positive attitudes and collaboration in a real-world context.
Biography Early years ...
,
Dee Cook,
Marie Lamb
Marie may refer to:
People Name
* Marie (given name)
* Marie (Japanese given name)
* Marie (murder victim), girl who was killed in Florida after being pushed in front of a moving vehicle in 1973
* Marie (died 1759), an enslaved Cree person in T ...
,
Michelle Senderhauf, and
Krystyn Wells were on the
puppetmaster team. ''World Without Oil'' was presented by
Independent Television Service (ITVS)
ITVS (Independent Television Service) is a service in the United States which funds and presents documentaries on public television through distribution by PBS and American Public Television, new media projects on the Internet, and the weekly se ...
with funding by the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The game's tagline is "Play it – before you live it."
The game concluded on June 1, 2007.
The game
''World Without Oil'' combined elements of an
alternate reality game with those of a
serious game. The game sketched out the overarching conditions of a realistic oil shock, then called upon players to imagine and document their lives under those conditions. Compelling player stories and ideas were incorporated into the official narrative, posted daily. Players could choose to post their stories as videos, images or blog entries, or to phone or email them to the WWO gamemasters. The game's central site linked to all the player material, and the game's characters documented their own lives, and commented on player stories, on a community blog and individual blogs, plus via
IM,
chat
Chat or chats may refer to:
Communication
* Conversation, particularly casual
* Online chat, text message communication over the Internet in real-time
* Synchronous conferencing, a formal term for online chat
* SMS chat, a form of text messagin ...
,
Twitter and other media.
The game was announced on March 2, 2007, and its teaser site went live at that time. A countdown site appeared approximately 2 weeks before the gamestart on April 30, 2007. The game concluded 32 days later, on June 1, 2007.
Goals
The ''World Without Oil'' game asked players to imagine a world reeling from a sudden oil shortage, describe how the crisis is unfolding where they live, and work together on simple and practical ways to adapt. By playing it out in a serious way, the game aimed to apply
collective intelligence
Collective intelligence (CI) is shared or group intelligence (GI) that emerges from the collaboration, collective efforts, and competition of many individuals and appears in consensus decision making. The term appears in sociobiology, politic ...
and imagination to the problem in advance, and create a record that has value for educators, policymakers, and the common people to help anticipate the future and prevent its worst outcomes. In sum, ''World Without Oil'' invited people to, per its slogan, “Play it - before you live it.”
Acclaim
''World Without Oil'' was an Awards Nominee in the Games category for a 2008
Webby Awards, earned an Honorable Mention for the Prix Green award for Environmental Art at the 01SJ 2008 festival, and was honored with a Special Mention in the Environment category for its contribution to humanity in the 2008 Stockholm Challenge.
The game won the award for
Activism
Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in Social change, social, Political campaign, political, economic or Natural environment, environmental reform with the desire to make Social change, changes i ...
at the
South by Southwest
South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...
Interactive conference in March 2008.
In 2022, ''World Without Oil'' was awarded a
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...
in a new category for Digital and Interactive Storytelling.
Criticism
An in depth analysis of player contributions in the game challenges the above claims by revealing the dominance of a handful of players including the puppet masters and commonplace sustainability themes such as alternate commute options or local foods.
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References
External links
*{{Official website, https://web.archive.org/web/20080611090552/http://www.worldwithoutoil.org/
2007 video games
Alternate reality games
Browser games
Video games developed in the United States