Do we have to live in two separate universes – a virtual world where we gratify our social needs through Facebook etc, and a real world where we satisfy our physical needs? Or can we somehow connect these, taking the advantages of a virtual world where play is ok for adults and imagination and creativity is rewarded and combine that with our civic duty of being stewards of our environment – meaning our home, school, work, community, city, state and the planet’s ecosystems.

What I learned in the social games mini-workshop led by Eric Gordon of Harvard University was the importance of games to build a structure around wonder. Within the magic circle of a game we can fail, learn, and explore more. The post-2015 development agenda emphasizes not just primary and secondary education but lifelong learning that is applicable for any age. Why limit lifelong learning to traditional pedagogical techniques? A principle of adult learning is that participants collectively bring with them about 80% of the knowledge in the room and the workshop should bring out and integrate that knowledge as well as impart new knowledge. Online social games (or engagement games) allow a thousand people to participate in a kind of virtual workshop, which becomes effectively a town hall meeting and an example of direct democracy.

While our social self increasingly lives in virtual communities through social media, our physical self still lives in real spaces. We sleep in real houses or apartments with neighbors near or far, travel to work on streets maybe congested or on public transport either efficient or in need of repair. Our children study in schools that might be overheated, under-heated or not well-ventilated. We buy our food in restaurants, shops and markets. Each person brings a unique perspective of how a particular physical space performs its official function (eg. shelter, education, mobility) and contributes to her safety, well-being, and being part of a community. Some city leaders have realized that they need to ask citizens how to make their city better because quality of life is subjective and cannot be resolved solely through technological solutions. Thus, there is a need to gather qualitative information from the community.

The engagement game is particularly useful for local governance and local development because it creates useful qualitative information. Some social media allow people to create misleading personas and comment anonymously and irresponsibly. But the engagement game requires authenticity. The game promotes honest debate and uses self-policing to prevent abuse of the game space. The benefit of real identities of the participants (even if they are assigned to play the role of a fictional character) is that the discussions and debate can be transferred back to the policy arena where infrastructure planning and other important decisions on how to utilize public resources are made. An example of such a platform is Community PlanIt.

I see engagment games attracting youth like my daughter who creates fantastically elaborate houses for her Sims families but is becoming more interested in building her following on Instagram. A good engagement game would allow her creative designs to flourish while allowing her to interact and give feedback on the ideas of other game participants. And the social game would give her a sense of responsibility for where she lives, travels and studies.

In the workshop I learned some of the principles that make a good game: clear outcomes, clear rules, immediate feedback, opportunities to fail safely, and room to play and have fun. With engagement games, the objective is to enable collective action by giving players the bigger social perspective of an issue. It seems contradictory, but online social games can bring people in a community closer together, allowing them to better understand the perspectives of people who are different based on their age, culture, ethnicity, or economic or family situation.

How does this happen? In games and in real life we decide what to do taking into account the decisions of others. Through engagement games we can play through different scenarios and learn why some actions or statements create certain reactions from members of the community. Through a game finalization meeting, participants reflect on what happened and what they have learned from each other. This helps reinforce the trust built and allows participants to coalesce around specific ideas.

Creating voice and participation for a democratic governance system is messy. Engagement games are not a silver bullet, but they might be effective in engaging youth especially. And in playing a virtual game, the participants may develop greater empathy for people who share their physical space.