Another not-so-elegant neologism (itself a butt-ugly word!) to add to the burgeoning collection is ‘gameification’ – the process by which we end up transmogrifying everything into some form of play. I was prompted to be mulling on this by an email that popped into my inbox this morning from Greenpeace – inviting me to join in their ‘Chainsaw Barbie’ campaign that aims to embarass Mattel into changing it’s packaging supply chain and to stop using Indonesian rainforest pulp.

Greenpeace have cleverly ‘gameified’ (still not enjoying the nomenclature) the campaign by hiding hundreds of Barbies across the UK, that you can find via this interactive map. Realising there was one just round the corner from the Futerra House I nipped speedily out but some superfast Barbie-knapper had already beaten me to it! If you secure a Barbie you become a special member of the ‘Barbie Investigation Bureau’ and a future lynchpin of the campaign.

I think it’s a brilliant, dynamic and engaging tactic to get people involved, invoking the pleasure principle and making a serious campaign issue fun and accessible. Of course, the idea of gameification is nothing new, way back in 2004/5 we put together ‘Carbon Invaders’, a spoof version of the classic Space Invaders in which you shoot kettles and incandescent lightbulbs to cut carbon and tackle climate change. It’s just now the scale, sophistication and dare I say ‘sizzle’ of emerging games is enormous. From ‘Farmville’, recently echoed by a real-life National Trust version, through to the competitive aspects of location based social media such as Foursquare, our lives are likely to become ever increasingly gameified (nope, still hating it as a word). Another good example is work we have been doing recently with the Carbon Lottery. Their clever approach involves making clmiate change and investment in clean technology part of a lottery game, using simple carbon footprinting and offsets that offer a chance to win up to €4M in their prize draw as an incentive to participate.

If we can use these entertaining aspects of play to illuminate and engage people in complex issues, improve understanding and most importantly encourage them to act, lobby or do something differently then I think they can and will be an enormously powerful tool for change. Now…we just need ‘Duke Nuke’Em’ to have an eco-epiphany…

; )