WORLD WITHOUT OIL is an alternate reality game that chronicled the first 32 weeks of our next oil shock.
Deal with oil dependency through play
Can a game help us prepare for a major oil crisis? The idea of World Without Oil is to tap collective intelligence to help us wade through a real crisis in the future – to generate conversation among bloggers, gamers, and other content creators to come up with creative ways to deal with oil dependency through play.
JON GORDON – FUTURE TENSE, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO
Save the oil, save the world
The goal of the game is to get real people around the world to start thinking about life without oil. To get them to answer questions like: How will they cope? What will they have to sacrifice? What can they do to help the world?
BRADY FORREST – O’REILLY RADAR
Astonishing quality
World Without Oil got my attention precisely by the uniqueness of the concept: to ask young people to publish imaginary reports over the weeks after an oil shortage begins, an event with multiple economic, social and environmental consequences. The result is of an astonishing quality. The participants got to the heart of a complex subject.
FRANÇOIS GUITÉ – RELIEF
This blog continues to chronicle the game’s themes, as well as host discussion on the game itself. Feel free to comment! – Ken Eklund, writerguy
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August 14, 2008 at 3:28 pm
yourstruly
Seems that something unprecedented may be going on now in that that despite this Russo-Georgian War. oil prices are continuing to fall. Considering that over the past year or so whenever there’s any sort of trouble (political or military) in a major oil producing region, oil prices have risen, why is oil down now when a war’s broken out in the world’s 2nd largest oil producing area? Makes one wonder whether all the stuff about supply & demand, speculation and such are nothing but unadulterated gobbledegook. How then to explain falling oil prices in the face of a war in the Black Sea region? Could this have something to do with the big oil doing whatever is necessary to keep the pump price down until after the November election. as per the midterm election two years ago? Why would big oil do this? Maybe it has something to do with Obama’s call for a tax on windfall profits + the public’s growing interest in public transportation and alternative sources of energy. Probably nothing panics big oil more than the possibility that the American people might elect a populist president. Is Barack Obama a populist? If he wins we’ll soon find out.
August 14, 2008 at 8:30 pm
WriTerGuy
The disconnect between oil prices and the Georgian War is notable, and I have no ready explanation. Of course, the BTC pipeline is already shut down (and will remain so for months) by an explosion in the Turkish segment that officials now say was definitely not sabotage. I think the oil traders see the war as a Russian assertion of power, which once made, everyone will revert back to (nearly) their starting positions. I think also that there is a consensus that $140 a barrel is too high, that the golden goose of the global economy is getting well and truly cooked at that price, and that many suppliers will be able to “settle” for $110 or $100 a barrel. For now.