Designing games for debate

This talk will explore how designing and using interactive games can help to foster debates in different participatory processes: co-design initiatives, collective intelligence strategies, change management. If they are often disregarded as serious games, these games are not afraid to embrace frictions and controversies as a key mechanism of their gameplay. Doing so, they are intended to inform on complex notions and seek for new unexpected contributions. If this practice is still fresh, it is proving to be an asset for many stakeholders such as public institutions and think tanks wishing to renew their public debate formats, newsrooms in their mission of informing the public, R&D or innovative companies willing to test their assumptions or better understand wicked problems.

I will present case studies and feedback about how game mechanics can be used for a mediation purpose within organisations as well as for public and participatory processes. The talk will be divided in two parts:

• Games to inform the public, with game mechanisms as a way to represent systems and to highlight consequences of an action, hidden status quo and complex interdependencies.
• Games to foster participation, with game mechanisms used to track decisions journey and collect qualitative inputs such as insights, ideas or reactions.