Social Sustainability

I've already posted on the gamification of many green movements, namely the use of electric cars and for recycling. But I believe there is another aspect that is beginning to show up in the green world that had its start from the internet and video games: Social Connectivity. We, as humans, care what other people think of us. We compete, cooperate, and judge each other, for better or worse. This sense of competition, however, can be harnessed to create an environment where everyone ends up becoming a bit more energy conscious.

Social networking has shown that large groups of people care about how others see them. How else can you explain Gamerscore? Gamerscore is a number attached to a person's Xbox Live profile, and is an indication of how many achievements that player has accumulated. This number has no bearing on gameplay, no monetary value, and is not officially ranked, but people care a lot about comparing this number to everyone they meet. This competition over a number of no real significance shows just how powerful social interactions can be in influencing how people act.

As previously posted, Nissan took this and created a leaderboard which ranked drivers on their driving efficiency. The Green Button Initiative is program by the Department of Energy that makes utility information more accessible to customers. One of the proposed ways of creating energy awareness is by pitting neighbors against each other on their energy usage.

Neural Energy Games wants to create a strong community in which competition and cooperation will be able to thrive and drive energy consciousness. We want to include some kind of achievement system, as well as a wide range of statistics from each of our games. By tying everything to a single player profile, we also want to make it so that this competition on one area of the site results in competition in others. This is of course a long term goal, but it's important for us to think about these issues to set a foundation that will support these ambitious plans.