Online Games, Participatory Enacting & Story Making

I was tweeted to World Without Oil, a web page and video about an online game that simulated the first 32 weeks of a global oil crisis. People played out at least the motions of their responses in the real, not the virtual, world. They communicated through weblogs, videos, whatever medium - to tell the story of what they were doing. The motto:

play it - before you live it

As the video says, this was an alternate reality game where it's not just thinking about change, it's making change.

This kind of serious gaming is a form of community story telling, highly participatory, with some sense of challenge and intention, but with the future open. It has elements of scenario planning, role playing, social presencing theater, transition towns, and rehearsing. It also seems to be a way for a community to, through activity and reporting on it, recreate a matrix for emergence of its future, or possibilities of futures.

I find this provocative in thinking about how to join our insights and best intentions with the ground of earth, with our fellow inhabitants, in the face of crisis. These kinds of intentional frameworks and their communities could be a bridge between individual authenticity and collective action.