Behaviour Change Wheel Driven Normative Feedback in a Serious Game for Energy Conservation

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Wells Lindsay de Salas Kristy Lewis Ian
2016 DiGRA/FDG '16 - Proceedings of the First International Joint Conference of DiGRA and FDG

Existing energy conservation interventions provide feedback in the form of graphs and numbers. There is a need for more persuasive and theoretically informed interventions in order to bring about a greater conservation effect. Using the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) systematic method of intervention design, we designed a mobile phone game which uses normative feedback as a behaviour change technique to promote energy conservation. This paper describes an application of the BCW method to the energy domain and presents the design of Energy Explorer—a serious game with the purpose of promoting positive energy conservation behaviours in the home—that incorporates meaningful reference groups, average player community score, and normative leaderboards.

 

Game Jams as an Opportunity for Industry Development

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de Salas Kristy Lewis Ian Bindoff Ivan
2016 DiGRA/FDG '16 - Proceedings of the First International Joint Conference of DiGRA and FDG

Game jams are social events involving the integration of enthusiasts from various game making disciplines (e.g. programming, art, design) to make games under constraints, such as a short fixed time (Goddard et al. 2014) and a common theme (Fowler et al 2013). Research on game jams has suggested that they have the potential to provide an effective and focused experience and that participants gain valuable skills in prototyping and collaboration (Fowler et al. 2013), exploring technology limits, experimenting with interfaces, and exploring themes (Goddard et al. 2014). This paper investigates whether game jams have an effect on the sense of community among developers in a weak and unsupported development ecosystem. Results from two local game jams suggest that they can in fact provide an opportunity for increasing awareness, familiarity, and participation amongst community members, and open up opportunities for identifying potential work partners – all essential elements in the move towards the development of a local games development industry.