IBM releases a video game that strives to educate the public on the intricacies of designing cities
by Dante’ A. Clemons
This past week, IBM unveiled CityOne, a simulated game that teaches players how to make cities and industries smarter by solving real-world business, environmental and logistical problems. Fairly similar to its predecessor, Sim City, CityOne, is marketed as a “serious game,” which means that it does more than entertain; it educates.
With an estimated one million people around the world moving into cities each week, experts predict population in the world’s cities will double by 2050. Today cities consume an estimated 75 percent of the world’s energy, emit more than 80 percent of greenhouse gases, and lose as much as 20 percent of their water supply due to infrastructure leaks. As their urban populations continue to grow and these metrics increase, civic leaders will face an unprecedented series of challenges as they modify their infrastructures to meet these challenges.*
In order for urban centers to sustain growth and play a positive and central role in the global economy, cities must grow smart. City infrastructures that deliver vital services such as transportation, energy and water, must rely on a wealth of new information and technologies that will allow them sense and respond intelligently to the needs of their growing populations. With CityOne, IBM is providing a virtual environment that will help tomorrow’s leaders learn how to apply advances in technology and better understand how these systems work.
The invention of a game that highlights such difficult and large-scale problems is equally placing each of us, designers and independents alike, in the role of problem solver. CityOne will be a no charge, “sim-style” game in which the player is tasked with guiding the city through a series of missions that include the energy, water, banking and retail industries. Players who promote a more customer-centric business model to the banks represented in their city will discover how mobile payments, dynamic invoicing, and micro-lending can impact business goals. In all of the missions represented in the game, the player will need to determine the best way to invest to meet the financial, environmental and sociological goals of the city’s industries while balancing their budgets and the needs of the citizenry. In parallel, players will learn how the components of service reuse, process management, cloud and collaborative technologies make business models more agile.
IBM has long believed in the power of using simulated games to make complex systems more engaging. Based on the concept of solving business challenges in creative ways, IBM serious games are designed to train the workforce of the future. Jane McGonigal’s recent TED talk highlighted a few advantages of designing video games with the intent to educate and inform. One advantage McGonigal coined as “Urgent Optimism” is based on gamers’ reasonable hope of succeeding at “beating” the game, or solving the problem. We can only hope that solutions generated in the virtual world of CityOne will be transferred and applied to the real one.
*content is from the IBM press release dated May 3, 2010.
