Motivating Energy and Resource Conservation Behavior by Gamification

Abstract

Gamification is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in a non-game context to engage users and solve problems. The project, Motivating Energy and Resource Conservation Behavior by Gamification, is to complement the area about gamification effect on motivating energy savings. In this project, we are designing a web game called Castle War which implements the electricity usage and water usage data from the Smart Housing Project of Clarkson University. The game is designed to be a war game that can engage every resident from the Smart Housing Project. The resident who saves more energy on that day, will get more currency to spend in the game on that day. The players can use the game currency to build their own empires while at the same time form unions to battle with others. In addition, the game elements will be closely related to the environmental-friendly topic. The real world concept of carrying capacity of environment, the tradeoff between development and pollution will be reflected in this game. This project will be a great addition to the research area that involves how the computer-based virtual world engagement of gamified system would motivate the real world energy consumption behavior.