Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees: Developing Economic Ideologies for Games about Climate Change

The utilization of some form of money as a collectible resource in games is incredibly widespread, almost to the point of ubiquity. The reasons for this are manifold. Games typically aim to provide an interactive experience based on a potentially real situation, however fictional the premise, and money is usually involved in such situations. Games also require readily understood concepts for at least some of the mechanics to simplify their learning curves, and money provides a certain “sweet spot” in terms of the level of abstraction, representing both a type of performance measure (akin to a point system) as well as a finite resource that serves to balance the player experience. But what if money is potentially problematic for the premise of the game itself, such as for serious games that promote environmental protection and aim to educate about climate change and sustainability? The complexity of money and economic ideologies in regard to climate change are difficult to address in a game without ascribing to a specific political agenda (e.g. corporations are evil entities), which can easily result in players rejecting the game. And yet the exclusion or even simple concealment of monetary systems can become overly cumbersome and even disingenuous as money does indeed tend to play a role in real life.