11 Educational Games for Social Good

As you may have read in my previous blog post, ‘10 Design Considerations when Developing a Learning Game’, I am currently involved in a project developing a science game for students.  However, the game also aims to educate children about certain lifestyle choices: diet, exercise, drugs, smoking and so on.  Therefore, it will be useful in PSHEE (Personal, Health, Social and Economic education) classes and the wider curriculum.  The game has, therefore, inspired me to write about educational games that aim to encourage social good.

I spoke briefly in my blog article, ‘The Fun Theory’ about how gamification can be used to encourage social good among adults.  For example, to encourage drivers not to speed, to encourage recycling, charitable giving, exercise and so on.  However, there are many educational games that have been designed to teach children about social areas such as politics and sustainability and to encourage good behaviours.

A study from the School of Education at Mills College in California has analysed the link between teenagers' gaming behaviour and their civic engagement offline.  The study aimed to discover whether teenagers with more ‘civic gaming experience’ were more likely to engage in real-world activities such as participating in a demonstration and giving or raising money for charity.  ‘Civic games’ include games that allow players to help other players and those that explore social or ethical issues.

The study found that 70% of the teenagers who were frequent civic gamers said they donated to charity, while only 51% with little civic-gaming experience donated.  61% of civic gamers also said they were interested in politics, compared to 41% for infrequent civic gamers.  The study also found that mainstream online role-playing games, such as World of Warcraft, that don't contain explicit social messages could still encourage socially ‘good’ behaviours.  This is because they encourage collaboration, negotiation, mentoring of ‘newbies’ and so on.  Critics argue that students naturally more inclined to donating to charity etc, will be more drawn to these games in the first place.  However, the researchers argue that while that is true, the games still probably do encourage behaviours in all players, just slightly more in these people.

So what games are out there?

Understanding different ways of life

Real Lives randomly assigns players to characters from different parts of the world.  They must guide their characters' decisions regarding work, health, education, and love based on the opportunities and disadvantages of that society.

ICED (I Can End Deportation) allows you to play an immigrant teen trying to earn U.S. citizenship and steer clear of the law - but avoiding trouble is harder than it seems.

Charities and Business

Food Force teaches children about world hunger as well as the challenges of relief work as they guide food-aid missions to an imaginary island called Sheylan.

Karma Tycoon challenges players to earn good karma and learn the financial logistics of running a non-profit organization such as an animal shelter or a senior centre.  They must strike a balance between quality of service and helping a certain number of people.

Sweatshop sees the player in charge of off shore manufacturing.  They must make their business a success while taking their staff into account.  Faced by a series of moral dilemmas, they must choose to put people or profits first.

Politics and Leadership

Democracy2 sees the player ruling an imaginary country.  They must bolster the economy, keep the peace, protect the environment and still win the next election.

PeaceMaker allows players to try their hand at brokering a solution to the Middle East conflict as either the Israeli prime minister or the Palestinian president while juggling the demands and limitations of leadership.

Sustainaville puts a group of people in charge of a virtual community.  They are split into teams such as local council, health and transport and must run a sustainable community.  Sustainaville tackles issues around sustainable development such as environment, health, crime, economy, poverty and resource use.

The Environment and Climate Change

Operation: Climate Control challenges players to choose which new technologies and energy policies to invest in to clear up the skies.  If they succeed in making the right choices, they can watch as clouds of pollution float away.

PowerUp by IBM challenges players with saving the imaginary planet Helios from ecological destruction.  They must carry out missions to supply solar, wind, and water power before severe storms wreak havoc.

The Climate Game looks at the issue of climate change. Eight teams are responsible for reducing the community’s carbon footprint. They need to achieve this while at the same time keeping the lights on and making sure that the community remains a pleasant and economically vibrant place to live and work.

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The Fun Theory

The Fun Theory (a Volkswagen Initiative) argues, “fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better”.  They held a competition for people who had fun ways of encouraging good behaviour.  For example: a ‘bottle bank arcade’ to encourage recycling, ‘piano stairs’ to encourage exercise, ‘the world’s deepest bin’ to encourage people to properly dispose of litter and ‘The Speed Camera Lottery’ (shown below).

The theory is obviously a bit of fun and good marketing but it did have impressive results.  For example, the Speed Camera Lottery ‘game’ reduced the average speed of cars on that road by 22% and the piano stairs meant that 66% more people than normal took the stairs over the escalator.  This gamification of everyday things seems to ‘nudge’ people’s behaviour in profound and measurable ways.  This begs the question, how far can you nudge people and in what ways?


Companies such as FavorTree, Practically Green and Crowd Rise have already made use of these ideas.  They have adopted gamification to encourage generosity, sustainability and charitable donations.  


However, gamification is not just being used to encourage social good.  Gartner (the world's leading information technology research and advisory company) predicts over 70% of Global 2000 organisations will have at least one gamified application by 2014 (see source).  Gamification (as we have discussed in previous blogs) describes how game mechanics can be applied to non-game environments to motivate people and change their behaviour.  Brian Burke, research vice president at Gartner argues that "successful and sustainable gamification can convert customers into fans, turn work into fun, or make learning a joy. The potential is enormous."  Therefore, gamification seems set to be popular amongst charities, businesses, educators and so on in the future.


The reason that gamification works to steer behaviour is rooted in basic psychology.  Positive reinforcement is a form of conditioning championed by B. F. Skinner.  It is essentially where you reward a behaviour you want to be repeated.  The reward of having fun doing something seems to be enough to make people change their behaviour.  Skinner argued that positive reinforcement is superior to punishment in altering behaviour as it results in lasting behavioural change.  Punishment, on the other hand, only changes behaviour temporarily.


A New York Times article, ‘Making Good Citizenship Fun’ argues that this may be why government schemes to steer behaviour (exhortation and fines) are largely ineffective.  The article also gives many more examples of how fun has been used to steer behaviour.


Therefore, fun and gamification seem to be gaining popularity as people begin to understand their power and as psychological theories catch up with technology.  Fun can be a powerful conditioning device and is being adopted in many sectors.  The Fun Theory: that “fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better” seems to have some solid foundations and is becoming more widely accepted and made use of.  Gamification seems set to be a common feature in our lives and one that may make our lives much more fun.