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If you want to change the future, play with it first.
STEFANIE OLSEN – CNET NEWS
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Imagine there's no oil. It's easy if you try.
SUSAN ARENDT – WIRED: BLOG NETWORK
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It's a way for the Internet to get a dose of oil-free reality.
SEBASTIAN BLANCO – AUTOBLOGGREEN
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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….
SUE – VERYSPATIAL
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During the game, players worked from a shared "alternate reality dashboard" which provided real-time data on oil prices and availability. The players used this data to inspire their own ideas about how the fictional crisis would affect them personally and play out in their part of the world.
JANE McGONIGAL – CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
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They are using content scattered throughout the web to create this new reality. Youtube videos, blogs and a LiveJournal Community are attributed to fictional characters... The puppetmasters use these characters to pull real people into the game and get them to start contributing.
BRADY FORREST – O'REILLY RADAR
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It’s been the participants themselves, or “netizen heroes,” who have done much of the heavy lifting. As of late last week, just over 1,700 active players contributed more than 1,300 “stories” about the ongoing crisis — in-character blog entries detailing how they’re coping with shortages and civil unrest, illustrated with photos of burned gas stations (repurposed for the game), videos and podcasts from cities across the nation and beyond, comics, tips about backyard gardening and much more.
JEREMY EGNER – CURRENT
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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
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The idea behind the game is simple: "Play it before you live it."
DAVID PESCOVITZ – B0INGB0ING
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The idea is half fiction, half investigative process...
MATTHEW SPARKES – DESIGN & ARCHITECTURE
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World Without Oil has launched and has already collected a massive amount of input from people's video, pictures and blogs, not to mention some well-conceived missions. It's a fantastic concept, and is probably the best example currently out there of how Alternate Reality Games might be used for a social purpose.
JIM WOLFF – TECHNOLUDOLOGY
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The ideas that people come up with for surviving in a post-oil world could actually pay off in real life if they lead to less consumption and more alternative sources of energy.
EVWORLD NEWSWIRE
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Log in to World Without Oil, a free alternate reality game that taps our collective ingenuity to stop a plausible crisis before it happens – or at least prepare a post-Katrina nation to deal better with a disaster.
ELIANE ALHADEFF – FUTURE-MAKING SERIOUS GAMES
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I found World Without Oil a great inspiration... my example of how the web can be used to narrate, perform and collaborate on social issues that are too big for any one individual to solve.
JEROEN COUMANS
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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)
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Sounds like a lot of fun… crowd-sourcing a real-world problem through role-playing and creative writing.
DEREK YU – THE INDEPENDENT GAME SOURCE
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It's like a RPG for treehuggin', global warmin' fightin' do-gooders. That is like so many levels of awesome, I just cannot say.
BONFIRE
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This is a prime example of using all the high-tech bells and whistles of the Web to educate humanity.
BOB JACOBSON – CORANTE
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World Without Oil is trying to rouse our 'democratic imagination.'
BEN VERSHBOW – INSTITUTE FOR THE FUTURE OF THE BOOK
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An Alternate Reality Game worth its weight in carbon credits.
ZACH WHALEN – GAMEOLOGY
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Anyone who has heard me speak in the last year will have heard me rave about World Without Oil. This is not just because it's an educational Alternate Reality Game, [but] because it points to a future direction for these 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 – BBC NEW MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY
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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
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This is quite the way to bring attention to an issue that would otherwise make people's hearts heavy with a mixture of apathy, fear and guilt.
ALICE TAYLOR – WONDERLAND
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It was a perfect example of some of the buzzwords we hear these days - crowd sourcing, collective creativity, collective intelligence.
LAURIE MOY – 40BROWN
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This grassroots experience looks at the impact on people's lives - work, social, family and personal - and explores what happens when our thirst for oil begins to exceed supply. And understanding it is a serious, positive step toward preventing it.
CCAMERON – SOCIAL EDGE
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If for whatever reasons gas prices suddenly skyrocket, lots of academics and scholars have all sorts of lofty things to say, but they are easily glossed over by everyday people because they seem so lofty or so far in the future that nobody cares. World Without Oil tries to look at it not from a lofty point of view, but from an everyday man-on-the-street perspective. If gasoline was suddenly $6 a gallon, with limited availability, how would it affect you, yes YOU, reading this right now? Would you be able to commute to work still? Would you be able to buy imported things? And the most important question: what can/would/should you do about it all? People post their ideas and tips about conservation. You can read, learn, and post your own.
NETNINJA
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The other day I was surfing worldwithoutoil.org, an online fictional documentary about the first 32 weeks of the upcoming oil crisis. The important question here - do you believe this society will voluntarily transform to a more just and sustainable one? If not, what will have to happen to bring that about?
HOPE2012
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Came across this very interesting bit of collaborative multimedia fiction today and killed a good hour perusing it. It's interesting to read (and view and listen to) a story that begins roughly now and extends into the future, a story told from many locations and points of view. Eerily plausible...
CHARLIE HIPHOP
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The beauty of World Without Oil's oil shock is the extent to which oil scarcity is already considered an issue that spans the personal, political, financial, and scientific, and World Without Oil, recognizing this, allowed players to engage on the levels most compelling to them.
NINA SIMON – MUSEUM 2.0
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As a concerned citizen I am glad to see the "game for good" aspect of World Without Oil get a lot of airtime. As a student of game design, I see something far more fascinating going on: World Without Oil appears to be one of the most efficient content propagating narratives ever executed in an Alternate Reality Game context.
MARK HEGGEN – RE:TEXT
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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
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More than 1,800 players brainstormed and demonstrated ideas on how the world would have to cope and more than 45,000 people followed the game. It’s an improved way of “playing.” It’s more than an educational game, it must be practiced in reality to play.
PUDKA – BENNETTONTALK
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World Without Oil suggests what could be the ideal dystopian form for the cultural moment: a mode of storytelling that taps directly into the present human condition of networked information blitz and tries to channel it toward real-world awareness, or even action.
BEN VERSHBOW – INSTITUTE FOR THE FUTURE OF THE BOOK
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Can you imagine what would happen in a world without oil? Several thousand people can, and did over a period of 32 weeks. They blogged about it as if it really happened – coming up with solutions and ways to live without or with very little oil. Check it out... It's kind of scary to think about... do you think it could happen?
MYTECHGUY – FOX 26 NEWS, HOUSTON
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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 participants got to the heart of a complex subject.
FRANÇOIS GUITÉ – RELIEF
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Instead of a typical 'clue-hunting' format, following a prescribed script, this alternate reality game is much more immersive, collaborative and unscripted... The idea of bringing futures conversations into the here and now is compelling.
STEAL THIS BRAND
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There’s something about the way that World Without Oil is taking place that leads one to forget that the events it describes are not actually real. The events of World Without Oil are not supernatural or fantastic, but they still are mythology, in that they are literally untrue events that reflect the patterns of our perceptions about the deeper, figurative truths about our lives.
CU SITH – CU SITH MYTH
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Fun for the whole family, in a Mad Max sort of way!!
CLIMATE PROGRESS
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Gone are the days when computer games involved little more than 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
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These games - designed to tell stories, to immerse, to engage and to act across multiple media - have all demonstrated the power to persuade large groups of people to do things that they would never dream of doing on their own.
DAN HON – REBOOT 9.0
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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. Your stories and suggestions give me hope that necessary skills and knowledge are being saved for times when we will need them desperately. You show me that many really great people are out there… and that we will lead the way.
EPAXSON (PLAYER)
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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)
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I’m finding it very difficult to express how cool World Without Oil is. In the absence of adequate words I’m going to have to fresh mint my own. It is radtacular!
BEN BASTIAN
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Dude. World Without Oil. Starting at the end of April of this year and extending for 32 weeks (now finished), this was a HUGE group effort to react to an oil crisis. Blogs, video, MP3s, and photos. Almost 2,000 participants. Completely. Fricking. Brilliant.
THE SERPENT’S JOURNAL (MORNATASARE)
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It's not simply that World Without Oil will encourage us to transfer our survival skills from its made-up world back into our real world. Instead, our reality itself becomes a game, and eco-friendly behavior is not simply a moral or political obligation impressed upon us by the persuasiveness of the evidence, now, it's also play.
ZACH WHALEN – GAMEOLOGY
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What I found particularly notable is that there's an Unfiction thread which isn't directly solving the problems of the game - but rather, talking about the issues, with commentary like this: "Until we build more nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal, solar, wind, wave, etc. power generation facilities, fuel-cells are not the answer to our problems." So people are thinking about the problem - which is the entire point.
SIMONC – GAMESETWATCH
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What was REALLY interesting: the comments to the producers telling how much the game had changed the way players were living their lives. Players may have been posting imaginary scenarios online, but offline they were making real changes. Some started riding their bikes to work, some traded in their gas-guzzlers for hybrids. Over and over again producers heard about the true impact of the game. Isn’t that why nonprofits use media? To make an impact? To change lives?
LAURIE MOY – 40BROWN
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So what did this game accomplish? I'll tell you what I got out of it - we're dealing with a hard set of problems! If nothing else, this game gave a good kick to optimists and got everyone thinking beyond dream scenarios.
NICK ERNST (PLAYER)
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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
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If the warnings of the entire scientific community can't stop us from continuing a carbon pollution that very well may destroy the planet we live on, how can we get everybody to stop? But if we all spontaneously started playing a game and tried to make it a new human adventure... Can gamers save the world?
JAMES BERNARD FROST
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Forget Live Earth, 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
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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
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You need to visit this site, but it's not for the faint of heart.
ANOK - IDENTITY CHECK
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It is one of the finest examples that I have seen of games being used to explore a social issue. This is a first 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
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This has been one of the most amazing experiences in my life. I can't believe it's been 32 weeks and that it's the last day. I've made so many wonderful friendships, learned so many things.
FALLINGINTOSIN (PLAYER)
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As for me, in this here and now, I'm a different person thanks to World Without Oil. I'm much more aware of the fragile thread that supports the lifestyle I and others keep. I'm making changes, but there's a long way to go. But I AM changing, and that means that for me, World Without Oil was a success.
MTALON (PLAYER)
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I think it was a marvelously creative use of new media to get people focused on a problem that is pretty much off the radar at virtually every level of politics and public discussion.
WARNWOOD (PLAYER) – THE WAR IS IN WORDS
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You're in for an entertaining and educational, but excruciatingly real experience - and one that unfortunately, in the future, will not be a game to play but the reality in which we live.
BOB JACOBSEN – TOTAL EXPERIENCE
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A civilian “war game” of this magnitude is worth the attention of lawmakers, activists and academia — if not as a resource for energy crisis solutions then at least as a compelling argument for the legitimacy of play as a problem-solving model.
LEGITIMATE PRODUCT
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It’s a great concept. My favorite aspect is that once the game is over, there’ll still be this cloud of interrelated websites and blogs that describe a world that never was.
WILLWITHOUTOIL (PLAYER) – GEEKBUFFET
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Why It Matters: Because as the bedrock assumptions of our lives shift more and more rapidly, being an expert doesn't necessarily make you a better predictor of the future. Sometimes, lots of "average" people swarming a problem makes for a better and more attuned discussion.
WORLDCHANGING TEAM
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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.
ECOPUNK
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Visual and activist rhetoric are combined to educate viewers, promote involvement, and effect change. It is useful as a source for information surrounding the oil crisis and a place to generate ideas. It also serves as an example of how various genres of communication can be combined into one cohesive activist text.
TERESA DROSSELMEYER – UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
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A game with a conscience – it's great to see this tangible example of productive play in motion. Congratulations to the team behind the curtain for contributing to positive social change.
TONY WALSH – CLICKABLE CULTURE
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At some point this becomes a fundamentally different form of storytelling.
MARK HEGGEN – RE:TEXT
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Act as if. Live it. Weave us into a possible future, let us picture ourselves in the middle of a plotline, rather than just spout out more statistics in a news item.
EVELYN RODRIGUEZ – CROSSROADS DISPATCHES
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"What if?" is a question everyone can answer.
NINA SIMON – MUSEUM 2.0
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How do we get this experience into the school systems?
MEGIDDO_TELL (PLAYER)
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In a true oil shock as we may be facing, it will not be the anarchist fantasy world that many people seem to want. It’ll be terror. It’ll be people watching other people suffer. It’ll be people not caring if others suffer because they can’t afford to. Let’s hope it never comes to pass in that way.
DMOISAN (PLAYER)
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I think this game has ushered in a new wave of building community and educating the masses in a digital world. The founders of this Alternate Reality Games made history and we the players thank you for it.
FALLINGINTOSIN (PLAYER)
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Here there's no upper limit on the game play. Everyone can have some, and every piece actually matters, because the game play is shaping the story yourself through your writing, and carrying the lessons learned into your life.
KSG (PLAYER)
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Fictional, but quite frightening.
BASILPLANT
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If you can grow food in your yard, you better start now.
MEREDITH MEDLAND – LIVING GREEN, PERSONAL LIFE MEDIA
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It was real to me.
ORGANIZEDCHAOS (PLAYER)
