IBM's CityOne Is Like Sim City, Except the Solutions Are Real | Hacker News Reader

IBM's CityOne Is Like Sim City, Except the Solutions Are Real

fastcompany.com

26 pointspchristensen10 comments

Do they also have corrupt politicians? Regulatory limits? Entrenched social interests? Complex interpersonal relations? Arcane budgetary practices? Campaign demands? Lawyers?

Limits on municipal efficiency are far more often social then technological. For a trivial illustration, watch "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" on Hulu. It shows, on a sub-sub-domain, the role that regulations, entrenched powers, lazy participants, and disinterested constituents play in preventing sweeping and self-evidently good change. At one point he's trying to shift an elementary school to healthy food, but this means a lot of non-finger-foods, so he wants the kids to use a knife and fork. An appalled lunch lady scoffs, "Do you let kids use a knife in England?" A bewildered Oliver responds "YES!" and she demands documented proof. And this is in the US, where overt corruption is arguably less rampant than elsewhere.

Without resolving some of the problems above, technology won't fix much of anything at all.

IBM sells solutions to these problems, so the game is effectively an ad for them, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Here's a neat explanation I came across a while back about what they did with congestion pricing in Stockholm: http://www.ibm.com/podcasts/howitworks/040207/index.shtml

People play games as an escape, to clear the mind, to let off steam, or for the adrenalin rush. People do not play games to immerse themselves in the angst-inducing problems of the day. A "serious" game with real-life scenarios and solutions is not a game at all. It is a simulation, or computer based education.

I think the line you're drawing is blurry, and I think you're overgeneralizing. There are as many reasons to play as there are people, and as many types of play as there are games.

Agreed. A kid can play with a roly-poly he found on the ground and that's a game.

Anyway, not sure why this discussion needs to be whether we consider this a "serious" game or not. I think it's a fantastic idea, and its execution will determine how fun it is to play.

Gaming can also be a learning experience.

The top two selling PC games of all time are The Sims and The Sims 2.

And they are not even remotely close to a simulation of real life, in the same way that reality TV is not remotely close to reality.

Cities already consume 75% of the world's energy and cause 80% of its carbon emissions.

Cities get a bad rap. About 75% of the world's people live in urban areas (at least in 1st world countries) so of course they consume 75% of the world's energy.

Cities have about 50% of population worldwide, but they do have much more of the wealth. Wealth and energy and pollution are highly correlated.

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