World Without Oil – serious games and online social networking

World Without Oil is an online project that is a little hard to describe…part serious game, part collaborative storytelling, part social network, part multimedia experience…..you get the picture. Basically, World Without Oil is based on the premise that “There’s an oil shock going on. It started April 30, 2007. The world oil supply is falling short of demand – by 1.5% at first, but it’s expected to increase to 3% or more throughout 2007.” So, the organizers of the project have set up an alternative reality serious gamethrough the World Without Oil website, where participants are invited to share their stories of how the simulated “oil shock” impacts their lives and experiences. These contributions can be in any media form, from audio messages, to video, to blogs and other text. You can look at and listen to some of the contributions that ahve already been submitted.

The idea is to have a record of the real impact of events on peoples’ lives, in addition to information from other sources such as governments or traditional media. The “game” idea is not necessarily easily explained on the website, but the notion of using collaborative social media to document events that can have a profound effect on our lives.

If you’re still not quite clear, head over to the World Without Oil website and definitely take a look or even join in. As the Internet and social media continue to play a larger role in our lives, we are like ly to see more efforts like this to harness the power of collaborative problem-solving.

Via Tech_Space