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November 12, 2007
Persuasion in Games for Third World Development
Over the past few days Free Rice has taken the world by storm. Free Rice is a simple online word identification game with a twist, namely the supporters of the game claim that for every word the player gets right the advertisers on the site donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program for distribution to areas of hunger.
The unlikely twinning of vocabulary practice that improve the English vocabulary skills of people in the Internet enabled world with the donation of food to those in need has been a very effective mobilization tool. In just over a month the grains of rice donated daily rose from 800 on October 7 to 136,236,930 donated yesterday. The persuasive elements that make Free Rice so potent are the simplicity of the message (highlighted by visuals that graphically sow the grains of rice to be donated in a stylized bowl), the ease of use of the site (ie simple multiple choice questions one after another), the transparency of the transaction (you play, you learn, advertisers on site donate, hungry people get rice). Yet above all else I believe the persuasive technique that drives the success of Free Rice is the link of micro action (playing a game) to a macro cause (world hunger) via incremental steps (words for grains of rice).
It is this last link that is the persuasive engine of Village the Game, a casual game currently under development, whose goal is to educate players about the practices of social enterprises working together with local people to improve social and economic conditions in the Third World. Demoed for the PersuasiveTechnology Lab lastweek by Founder, Darian Hickman, Village the Game aspires to be SIM City meets Third World Development. The "grains of rice" in Village the Game are cheap, practical, and eminently usable technologies such as Kick Start Pumps, Mighty Light Solar LEDs, etc., technologies that bring a qualitative leap in te economic conditions of its users. By incrementally playing Village the Game, individuals in the developed world not only become aware of these potent new technologies acting in a third world village setting, but gameplay will also allow them to generate the buzz so as to allow advertisers to get these tools to the villages who can make use of them.
Three Cheers for Persuasion, Games and Third World Development!
Posted by Adam at November 12, 2007 10:33 AM