Gaming as a Medium for the Expression of Citizens' Views on Environmental Dilemmas.

Dai Griffiths; Jude Ower; Paul Hollins; Anchal Garg

doi:10.9781/ijimai.2025.02.006

Authors

Dai Griffiths Universidad Internacional de La Rioja.
Jude Ower PlanetPlay.
Paul Hollins The University of Bolton.
Anchal Garg The University of Bolton.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.9781/ijimai.2025.02.006

Keywords:

Citizen Engagement, Games, Gamification, Policymaker, Survey

Supporting Agencies

The authors would like to acknowledge the essential collaboration of the United Nations Development Programme, without whom this work would not have been possible. They would also like to acknowledge the valuable contributions of Katharina Koller in identifying related work, of Joost Schuur in cleaning and formatting the data and clarifying the technical infrastructure, and of Pradeep Hewage in supporting the data analysis. This research was partially funded by the European Commission and by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), through the Horizon Europe research project GREAT, grant agreement 101094766. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or UKRI. Neither the European Union nor UKRI can be held responsible for them.

Abstract

The decline of traditional media and channels of communication has led to policymakers experiencing difficulty in understanding public sentiment. A case study was conducted to explore how games-based activities can be used to provide a link between citizens and policy makers. A system developed by PlanetPlay, and extended in the GREAT project, was used to embed a survey in the game SMITE. The intervention and survey questions were designed in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Hi-Rez game studio. The effectiveness of the infrastructure and the collaborative approach were demonstrated. The results revealed some significant differences in views on climate change between different age groups, genders, and education level. However, the data was heavily skewed towards males in the 18-35 age group, and to respondents in the United States, which limited the generalizability of the findings. It was concluded that in-game placement in collaboration with games studios is more effective than paid placement, and that a wider variety of games is needed to ensure that a study has an adequate range of respondent profiles. Finally, reflections are offered on the possible role of artificial intelligence in gathering such data.

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