Is this idea solid, or magical thinking?
A year ago, March 2020, an idea came to me about connecting real-world environmental data to a video game in the cloud. I’d been writing a lot about Microsoft Azure and talking to a lot of friends in the video game industry when I realized how climate data and game data can mingle and influence each other.
This was the month we went into lockdown. By April, I thought I’d contracted Covid-19, but a home test distributed by the Gates Foundation came back negative, leaving me wondering if I’d shoved that swab far enough up my nose. I started my mornings reading passages of The Upanishads, lost my job, played a lot of Metal Gear Solid IV, and went long stretches without seeing my kids. Like a castaway clinging to a life raft, I held on to a vision of a game that can heal the planet. I decided to call this concept the World Integration Loop, or WIL, because who doesn’t love a snappy acronym.
A year later, I’m still obsessed with this idea, but I’ve reached the point where I wonder whether it’s actually valid or was just a pandemic coping mechanism all along. Was I using this idea as a distraction from the disruptions of the past year?
Today, the sun is out, I’ve been fully vaccinated, my kids are with me again, and more work is coming in. I’m taking the opportunity to assess the WIL in the light of day.
Here’s the WIL in as few words as possible. Gather real-world environmental data, including GIS, IoT, and LiDAR, to build digital twins using a game engine in the cloud. Establish dependencies between real-world data and the game world. Identify restoration, conservation, stewardship, and environmental justice goals that can be expressed in data. Trigger asset bundles (quests, rewards, treasures, etc.) in the game world when real-world goals are achieved. Build a digital marketplace in the game to generate funds. Direct these funds to organizations taking climate action, in exchange for access to the data that these organizations collect. Create a positive, algorithmic feedback loop so that the more the real world heals, the more fun the game becomes.
Last spring, I started consulting with people I trust to see if I was actually on to something. I reached out to the artist Floria Sigismondi and proposed that we start a game studio together. I’m a serious fan of her dark imagination, we’d talked about collaborating for years, and the prospect of embracing an art form to which neither of us is native had its appeal.
I also approached a trusted friend with whom I’d worked during the dotcom years, Melanie Roberson, who thinks in charts and graphs and executable plans, who proceeded to educate me on the ways GIS data is used in environmental justice initiatives. When I described the WIL to Floria and Melanie, they both responded with a sort of “ah-ha!” moment of instant recognition and enthusiasm. Their reactions encouraged me to keep developing the idea.
The more people I told about the WIL, the more “ah-ha!” moments I encountered. I knew I needed to consult with a wide variety of professionals who could help me develop the idea, shoot holes in my assumptions, and point me in new directions that hadn’t occurred to me. I needed to better understand video games, for starters, so enrolled in a community college intro to game design class and started reading books on mapping software and game development.
I ran the WIL by various friends I’d met at technology companies for the past twenty plus years. I relentlessly bored my family talking about it. But not a single person told me that this idea was impossible, which either meant it was actually achievable or that I’d somehow duped dozens of brilliant individuals with my own version of pandemic-induced magical thinking.
I reached beyond my personal and professional network and consulted various experts in a number of technical fields. I discovered a lively Discord server chattering with video game industry professionals driving climate-related initiatives and learned about the UN Playing 4 the Planet Alliance. And I had lots of Zoom, Google Meet, FaceTime, email exchanges, and phone calls. Here are some of the people whose encouraging feedback I came to value this past year, in no particular order:
Trista Patterson, Senior Advisor to Managing Director of the UN Environmental Program
Marina Psaros, Lead, Environment and Sustainability, Unity Technologies
Jack Strongitharm, Senior Account Exec, Unity Technologies
Nicolas Hunsinger, Environmental Sustainability Director, Ubisoft
Todd Smith, Emerging Businesses and Alliances, ESRI
Jake Manion, Head of Product, Internet of Elephants
Robin Hunicke, Co-founder, Funomena
Robyn Miller, game designer, co-creator of the Myst franchise
Tom Doyle, lead artist for Halo and founder of game studio Endeavor One
Mark Yeend, Chief Monetization Officer, Neon Media
Arnaud Fayolle, Art Director, Ubisoft
Deborah Mensah-Bonsu, Founder, Games for Good
Dr. Evie Powell, Game Developer, Founder, Verge of Brilliance
Tadgh Kelly, Game and XR Consultant, formerly with Magic Leap
Regina Wadler, Land Steward, Skagit Land Trust
Allen Murray, VP Production, Private Division
Renee Gittins, Executive Director, Independent Game Developers Association
Paul Hubert, Founder, Immersion Networks
Cami Smith, Industry Relations, Academy of Interactive Entertainment
Cameron Jones, Co-Founder Flash Forest (drone reforestation company)
Bryce Jones, Co-Founder, Flash Forest
Greg Crossley, Director of Engineering, Flash Forest
Dr. Andrew Adamatzky, Professor of Unconventional Computing, University of Bristol
Abishek Shaw, Co-Founder, GloboLive 3d (GIS mapping company)
Kate Leroux, Cartographer, Amazon
Rex Hansen, Project Manager, ESRI
Paula Escuadra, Senior UX Researcher, Google Stadia
Chris Charla, Sr. Director, Content Curation and Programs, Xbox
Dr. Brian Whiting, Professor, GIS expert
Tim Cullings, Director of Operations, Global Game Jam
Drew Stone, Founder, Locusium (VR platform)
Scott Bennett, VR artist
Chris Andrews, Group Product Manager, ESRI
Beth Massa, CEO, Ozarka (sustainable packaging company)
Francesco Cappilli, Founder, BIMaking Engineering
Peter Hilgendorf, President, Lake & Pine (creative agency)
Having consulted these and other generous folks, I believe I have either hoodwinked them — and myself — into thinking the WIL is achievable, or it actually is.
When I told my son, “This isn’t just the best idea I’ve ever had. This is one of the best ideas anyone has ever had,” was I being delusional? That sure sounds like something a delusional person would say.
Regardless, I wake up thinking about the WIL, fall asleep thinking about the WIL, and keep talking and writing about the WIL, waiting for someone to tip me off that everyone has been humoring me out of pity all along, or that I just invented something to occupy my thoughts that doesn’t involve the pandemic’s cavalcade of tragedies.
What started as an idea for a video game has evolved over the course of this year into a vision for a set of free protocols for managing positive relationships between the worlds in which we play and the world in which we live. I’ve begun to envision this as an innovation that can be incorporated into thousands of video games.
Again, I’m not dismissing the possibility that this idea is ridiculous, a mere expression of solace borne of isolation and uncertainty. Then again, has there ever been a better time than now to take a chance on a crazy idea?
