What are the implications of digital games for conservation? This was the question asked by project entitled Videogames and Biodiversity Conservation: Assessing the Potential in the University of Cambridge in 2011. This was a collaboration between Bill Adams (Department of Geography), Chris Sandbrook (UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre) and Bruno Monteferri (now with SPDA, the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, then a recent graduate of the MPhil in Conservation Leadership at Cambridge). A grant from the Cambridge Conservation Initiative funded two events in November 2011 to discuss the opportunities and implications of using games for nature conservation purposes.
Key questions asked by the project were framed within a biodiversity conservation context but many could also be applied to many social science disciplines.
· How will games affect the way we think about and interact with nature (and conservation challenges) in the real world? Does immersion in virtual worlds (from Pokemon to Avatar’s planet of Pandora) erode engagement with real world nature and the threats to it? Will virtual nature start to outshine living nature in the eyes of a game-obsessed world? Or can games engage a generation who have already lost contact with wild nature?
· What stories do online games tell about our relationship with nature? Can nature or conservation be represented in computer games in exciting and true ways? Can games help explain the complex ecological and political interactions as well as the forces that lead to the loss of species and habitats, and the impoverishment of local people?
· Could skills and aptitudes developed in gaming contribute to conservation? Will the use of games for nature conservation result in more activism and philanthropy?
We held Seminar in November 2011 in Cambridge to discuss the challenges of linking conservation and gaming. This was attended by over 80 people from the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin University, conservation organizations (Cambridge Conservation Initiative and Cambridge Conservation Forum) and games design professionals.
We then held a workshop with 25 conservation and gaming professionals and researchers. This explored in more detail the potential use and implications of video games for nature conservation, learn from previous experiences and foster collaborative projects.
The research showed that games had considerable potential to build support for conservation initiative and to reconnect people and nature. However there was a lack of existing conservation games, and communication between conservation organisations and the computer games industry was limited. The research also highlighted a gap between the potential and actual reach of conservation games.
The main product of the project was the website Games for Nature, an exploration of the challenge of ‘making conservation fun’. A report of the event can be found here and a short paper on ‘digital games and conservation’ is in review with the journal Conservation Letters.
We now have a new project to explore the potential for games to contribute to science communication, and to conservation objectives, with short-term funding by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC): Impact Acceleration Account Impact Fund, see the project the homepage.
Bill Adams
Key questions asked by the project were framed within a biodiversity conservation context but many could also be applied to many social science disciplines.
· How will games affect the way we think about and interact with nature (and conservation challenges) in the real world? Does immersion in virtual worlds (from Pokemon to Avatar’s planet of Pandora) erode engagement with real world nature and the threats to it? Will virtual nature start to outshine living nature in the eyes of a game-obsessed world? Or can games engage a generation who have already lost contact with wild nature?
· What stories do online games tell about our relationship with nature? Can nature or conservation be represented in computer games in exciting and true ways? Can games help explain the complex ecological and political interactions as well as the forces that lead to the loss of species and habitats, and the impoverishment of local people?
· Could skills and aptitudes developed in gaming contribute to conservation? Will the use of games for nature conservation result in more activism and philanthropy?
We held Seminar in November 2011 in Cambridge to discuss the challenges of linking conservation and gaming. This was attended by over 80 people from the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin University, conservation organizations (Cambridge Conservation Initiative and Cambridge Conservation Forum) and games design professionals.
We then held a workshop with 25 conservation and gaming professionals and researchers. This explored in more detail the potential use and implications of video games for nature conservation, learn from previous experiences and foster collaborative projects.
The research showed that games had considerable potential to build support for conservation initiative and to reconnect people and nature. However there was a lack of existing conservation games, and communication between conservation organisations and the computer games industry was limited. The research also highlighted a gap between the potential and actual reach of conservation games.
The main product of the project was the website Games for Nature, an exploration of the challenge of ‘making conservation fun’. A report of the event can be found here and a short paper on ‘digital games and conservation’ is in review with the journal Conservation Letters.
We now have a new project to explore the potential for games to contribute to science communication, and to conservation objectives, with short-term funding by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC): Impact Acceleration Account Impact Fund, see the project the homepage.
Bill Adams