World of Warcraft is now the most popular MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) on the planet, played by more than 11 million people worldwide. Under these conditions, it would stand to reason that this single application could potentially have a tremendous impact on the lives of many individuals, and that's why it should also be used to do good, Stanford professor Byron Reeves believes.
Over the years, the scientist has suggested the creation of an MMOG (massively multiplayer online game) that would incorporate smart meter technologies, in a bid to make the user more aware of various issues facing the environment today, and to create the feeling that individuals have to get involved, even if simply from behind their computer screen.
As far as combat in World of Warcraft (WoW) goes, no one is currently able to win unless their whole team wins, which is actually the basis for the large level of cooperation seen in this game. But Reeves argues that smart meters, designed to monitor a computer user's electricity consumption, could be assigned to each member of a guild. When one of them behaves in a manner that consumes too much electricity, the score for the whole team could drop.
However, the main idea is not to make gamers lose points, but to cause them to behave in such a manner that they work for the good of the team. Psychologically speaking, this is the only way to convince persons to follow suit and care about a specific issue – you have to make the entire outcome of the title depend on all members' behavior. Although it could seem like a long-shot, this idea might actually prove to be effective.
“Of course, you could change your energy usage because you had read all the science about climate change and you knew something about energy usage in the house, and you were interested in saving six cents here, a dollar there, two dollars there on your energy bill. But we don’t think that that will be enough motivation at scale for lots of people to get into this. So, if you can align that goal with 'let’s have some fun, let’s go on a quest, let’s have a team activity, let’s see who can do this better than others, let’s help each other' – all the different features of games that are important. And if we can get that going at the same time as the community value, we might have something special,” Reeves maintains.
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