All Work and No Play? Facilitating Serious Games and Gamified Applications in Participatory Urban Planning and Governance

As games and gamified applications gain prominence in the academic debate on participatory practices, it is worth examining whether the application of such tools in the daily planning practice could be beneficial. This study identifies a research–practice gap in the current state of participatory urban planning practices in three European cities. Planners and policymakers acknowledge the benefits of employing such tools to illustrate complex urban issues, evoke social learning, and make participation more accessible. However, a series of impediments relating to planners’ inexperience with participatory methods, resource constraints, and sceptical adult audiences, limits the broader application of games and gamified applications within participatory urban planning practices. Games and gamified applications could become more widely employed within participatory planning processes when process facilitators become better educated and better able to judge the situations in which such tools could be implemented as part of the planning process, and if such applications are simple and useful, and if their development process is based on co-creation with the participating publics

Stadt spielerisch verstehen und mitgestalten:Wie das Serious Game 'Mobility Safari' nachhaltige urbane Mobilitätslösungen fördert

Das Thema der Partizipation in der Stadtentwicklung und -planung hat in den letzten Jahren einen deutlichen Bedeutungszuwachs erfahren. Traditionelle Planungs-, Steuerungs- und Kommunikationsansätze stoßen in einer immer vielschichtiger werdenden Akteurslandschaft und dem zunehmenden Bedürfnis der Bürgerinnen und Bürger nach Mitbestimmung an ihre Grenzen. Um diese Barrieren zu überwinden, wird in jüngerer Zeit zunehmend mit spielerischen Ansätzen in Form von Serious Games experimentiert. Durch Serious Games sollen auf unterhaltsame Weise Information, Wissen, Handlungsmaßnahmen und Initiativen vorgestellt werden. Ebenso werden stadträumliche und planerische Fragen diskutiert, Lösungen erarbeitet oder generelle Partizipationsmöglichkeiten aufgezeigt, um Akteure zur Beteiligung zu stimulieren und gegenseitig voneinander zu lernen. Dieser Artikel thematisiert, wieweit das Spiel „Mobility Safari“ Spieler und Spielerinnen spezifisches Mobilitätswissen vermittelt, wodurch das soziale Lernen forciert und Möglichkeiten zur Beteiligung aufgezeigt werden können

Learning from Game Design:Understanding Participatory processes through Game Mechanics

With the increasing interest of local governments in civic participation, it becomes important to explore the available methods for orchestrating participatory processes and evaluate how different tools address some of the common issues associated with participatory processes. Game design is an expanding field where systems thinking is put to practice by combining simple mechanics into full game experiences. This paper argues that urban planners will be able to improve the coherence and overall experience of participatory processes by thinking of participatory tools in terms of separate game mechanics, which when used in balance, create a compelling player/participant experience. In doing so, some of the challenges faced by existing participatory frameworks can be addressed. The potentials and challenges of approaching the design of participatory processes as a game design process are discussed in the framework of three case studies in the Netherlands, Austria and Belgium

Here and now?: explorations in urgent publishing

Urgent publishing pertains both to timeliness and relevance. What strategies are available to publishers in the cultural and research domains to conceive, produce, and position their contents in an urgent way? Revolving around the key notions of relations, trust, and remediation, Here and Now? Explorations in Urgent Publishing presents methods and prototypes that counter the contemporary speedy information sphere in new and different ways. It develops a situated account of hybrid publishing, where authors, editors, publishers, designers, and readers operate together