Getting serious about gaming to connect water stakeholders

“Serious gaming can raise stakeholder awareness on water supply and demand. Gamification enables stakeholders to exchange roles virtually and to explore the impacts of policy options. Water utilities are adopting serious gaming to aid strategic planning decisions.
Gaming has always been an integral part of human culture. One of the oldest forms of social interaction and communication, games have enabled civilisations to bond and thrive as communities.In his book Homo Ludens, Dutch historian Johan Huizinga argued that playing games is older than culture, and it is actually a necessary (yet not sufficient) condition of the generation of culture. For example the Royal Game of Ur, a wooden board game with ornamental, shell plagues, was discovered in the Persian Gulf and dates back nearly 5000 years.
Today, many aspects of our digital world have been gamified; whether it’s accumulating followers on social media, to earning bonus points through online shopping apps. The fact the video games have overtaken the film industry to be worth a staggering $200 billion by 2023 is testament to how our thirst for games continues to grow.”

(Citation: Munaretto, S. – Getting serious about gaming to connect water stakeholders – www.smartwatermagazine.com (2021)18 May)