PHOTO: Magnus Persson on the left playing the game in Västerås.
Can a role-playing game change the world? Changing the game of consumption makes an attempt. It’s a communication project where large-scale social simulations, called megagames, are used to navigate towards sustainable consumption of food, holidays, and home decor.
“The Game of Consumption” or “Changing the Game of Consumption” is a role-playing game designed for 20 or more participants, a so-called megagame. As a player, you assume roles of different individuals, organizations, or companies involved in, or affected by, the immense societal transformation required to make our world sustainable.
Combination of role-playing and board games
– The game is a combination of a role-playing game and a board game, with enough participants so that the social dynamics between them help us learn about socially complex change processes and different perspectives on sustainable consumption, says Ola Leifler, a researcher at Linköping University. That is, understanding things that might be too complicated for some to grasp in, for example, a scientific study.
By engaging different people in a game where one can switch between being an oil company one moment and Greenpeace or a trade union the next, the hope from the researchers behind the game is that players gain a better understanding of what we need to do to transition and how to do it. The hope is that even the researchers behind the game receive new input from the participants. Both to develop the game and to create new research.
Based on research
The game is created by Magnus Persson and Ola Leifler, researchers at Linköping University, and based on Mistra Sustainable Consumption’s research on sustainable consumption. Researcher Åsa Svenfelt at KTH and Linköping University is the research manager. Her enablers, for example, are part of the game.
The game is tested from time to time in various locations in Sweden. Keep an eye on our social media for the next round if you’re interested in participating.
READ MORE:
https://liu.se/en/research/changing-the-game-of-consumption
CONTACT:
Ola Leifler
Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, Linköping University
ola.leifler@liu.se
+46 13-28 16 97
Åsa Svenfelt
Associate Professor, Linköping University and Researcher, KTH
asa.svenfelt@liu.se
+46 11-36 31 92
