22 SHORT QUOTES ABOUT WORLD WITHOUT OIL
If you want to change the future,
play with it first.
STEFANIE OLSEN – CNET NEWS
Imagine there's no oil.
It's easy if you try.
SUSAN ARENDT – WIRED: BLOG NETWORK
World Without Oil is an online project that is a little hard to describe… part serious game, part collaborative storytelling, part social network, part multimedia experience…
SUSAN BERGERON – VERYSPATIAL
World Without Oil got my attention precisely by the uniqueness of the concept: to ask people to publish imaginary reports over the weeks after an oil shortage begins, an event with multiple economic, social and environmental consequences. The quality of the result is astonishing. The players got to the heart of a complex subject.
FRANÇOIS GUITÉ – RELIEF
This game isn't purely make-believe. It's meant to draw attention to the real possibility of an oil shock and what our country and the world have to do to prepare for it.
DEAN TAKAHASHI – SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
The idea behind the game is simple: "Play it before you live it."
DAVID PESCOVITZ – B0INGB0ING
As the game progressed over 32 days, 1,800 participants responded to the imaginary oil shock by making changes in the real world — growing apple trees, converting their cars so they could be fueled by cooking oil and collectively writing a manual about ways to respond to the crisis.
ROBIN MORONEY – THE INFORMED READER,
WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
It is a far cry from the "calculate your carbon footprint" or other casual games about resource usage. It required much higher engagement than reading news articles on the topic; it was a huge growing, twisting network of news, strategy, activism, and personal expression.
NINA SIMON – MUSEUM 2.0
Anyone who has heard me speak in the last year will have heard me rave about World Without Oil. I love it because it points to a future direction for Alternate Reality Games, in which the story is not a funnel that directs a few people towards a unique experience, but an open, collaborative story in which lots of different threads can exist alongside each other.
MATT LOCKE – TEST – BBC NEW MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY
Nothing’s made me sit up and take notice more than World Without Oil, a hypothetical web journal documenting a week-by-week account of life in America as oil supplies dwindle. It confirms for me that digital, and Alternate Reality Games in particular, could really steer society to saving mother earth.
SIMEON – HYPERHAPPEN
I thought World Without Oil was amazing and groundbreaking. The way it gets a grassroots movement designed to think about important problems and builds it around narrative – inspiring.
JESSE ALEXANDER (executive producer of Heroes, LOST, Alias) interviewed by ALICE TAYLOR – BBC
World Without Oil is trying to rouse our 'democratic imagination.'
BEN VERSHBOW –INSTITUTE FOR THE FUTURE OF THE BOOK
In the end, the entire enterprise feels less like a traditional game, and more like a war game or scenario simulation. Except World Without Oil isn’t about our leaders visualizing their strategies and determining how they would respond to potential crises… It’s about us developing those same skills. For that reason alone tools like World Without Oil are exciting, since they begin to re-empower us all to understand and take control of the events happening around us.
NATHAN ACKS – ECOPUNK
This is public media at its most innovative, engaging a global public concerned with the world’s dependence on oil and both educating them and moving them to action.
JESSICA CLARK – CENTER FOR SOCIAL MEDIA,
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY
It is one of the finest examples I have seen of games being used to explore a social issue. This is a baby step from where games are today - primarily about visceral action, towards where they might one day be - one of the most important artistic and pedagogical tools that we will possess.
BEN BASTIAN
The producers of this alternate reality game have taken the web to create a new form of mass media that may produce more lasting effects and engage people in a more effective way. As I've explained before: "for a new generation of viewers, viewing is not enough. Participation is a must."
JUAN – GLOBAL CULTURE
Gone are the days when computer games involved mowing away descending hordes of pixellated aliens. Now people are beginning to see the potential of games as ways of teaching and learning, not just individually but in groups and, theoretically, as a planet.
ARMCHAIR ANARCHIST – FUTURISMIC
This experience has been just incredible for me. I've learned so much and started to think about even small things in my daily life in a new way.
EPAXSON (PLAYER)
I really mean it when I say World Without Oil changed my life. My friends, family and coworkers have all noticed the difference. In all seriousness, this entire thing has made me a different person.
FALLINGINTOSIN (PLAYER)
This is the first time in my life where I felt art had a visceral power to change the course of history.
PEAKPROPHET (PLAYER)
How do we get this experience into the school systems?
MEGIDDO_TELL (PLAYER)
It was real to me.
ORGANIZEDCHAOS (PLAYER)
