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Approaches to Gaming the Future: Planning a Foresight Game on Circular Economy
- 1. Conclusions Foresight is usedto anticipate future developments and trigger responses to them. Serious games can enhance foresight by creating engaging experiences and increasing interaction between participants. In this paper we studied how serious games can be used to generate new insights about alternative futures. We structured existing approaches based on their type and purpose and described a case study of developing a web-based foresight game on circular economy. Based on the review and case study we suggest that foresight games that are balanced between the dimensions of idea generation, informing and experience are well suited to provide insights into the practices and strategy of the players’ organisation. The main purposes of games in foresight We categorise the approaches to games in foresight roughly based on their emphasis on three purposes. 1. Idea generation: the creation and aggregation of signals, trends and future developments without processing them further. 2. Informing: the communication of existing ideas, scenarios, trends etc. 3. Experience: moving towards other “ways of knowing”, that is feeling, sensing and going through alternative future developments. Finding these three in foresight games is challenging and dependent on the context. But once the balance is found the end result is a game that opens up new opportunities but is connected to the everyday work of the player – a game that can be used to generate new insights about alternative futures. Introduction and background Major disruptions and systemic changes such as a transition to the circular economy require a long-term perspective and challenging of existing mind-sets. Serious games offer one solution to enhance learning in foresight. They can be used to support internalising knowledge, communicating and sharing ideas, increasing and broadening participation and creating new futures knowledge. Games can create fun and engaging experiences that increase the interaction between participants to the foresight process as well as with the data gathered. Figure 2. Phases of the Circulate.Now foresight game. Circulate.Now -game As a case study, the project team designed a game where players develop new ways of creating value for their company by tapping into the potential in circular economy. In the game players create new business ideas and assess their economical, social and environmental sustainability, aligned with future trends. The players then invest and re-assess each others’ ideas. As a result new business ideas are created, shared and tested. Randomness and surprise is brought into the game via changing trends and hiding the direct influence of indicators that the player assesses when creating an idea. The player gets constant feedback in the form of scores, achievements and return on investments Figure 1. Three main purposes of games in foresight. Figure 3. A snapshot of the game in ideation and assessment phase. Contacts Mikko Dufva Tel. +358 40 765 8412 mikko.dufva@vtt.fi Outi Kettunen Tel. +358 40 760 1843 outi.kettunen@vtt.fi Approaches to Gaming the Future: Planning a Foresight Game on Circular Economy Mikko Dufva • Outi Kettunen • Henna Sundqvist-Andberg • Timo Tuomisto • Anna Aminoff • Maria Antikainen VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd Circular economy The circular economy is gaining increasing attention in Europe and around the world as a potential way for our society to increase prosperity, while reducing dependence on primary materials and energy. The basic notion of circular economy is to eliminate waste by designing out waste. Products are designed and optimized for a cycle of disassembly, reuse, and refurbishment, or recycling. New innovative business models, when changing from ownership to performance based models, are instrumental in translating products designed for reuse into attractive value proposals.