Ensured Energy: How a Serious Game can Reach and Engage Diverse Societal Groups in Swiss Energy Transition

Abstract

In support of Switzerland's energy and climate strategy for 2050, researchers investigate scenarios for the transition of energy systems towards a higher share of renewables, assessing their social, environmental and economic impact. Their results guide stakeholders and policy makers in designing resilient and sustainable systems. A crucial condition to successfully implement these solution in the real-world is that the population supports these transitions. Social scientists have identified the high complexity of energy systems and energy policy as one reason why popular support for the implementation of the energy transition is often limited. This paper proposes serious gaming as a novel approach to inform and sensitize a broader public for the transition of the energy system in Switzerland. We motivate and describe the design of an online game in which players experience an accurate simulation of current and future energy provision and manage transition towards a sustainable future. We present the embedding of this serious game into a large-scale population survey and report findings on player characteristics and engagement. We show that a serious game can successfully attract participants from diverse societal groups and highlight the challenge of balancing complexity and entertainment.