# 005 - Navigating the Great Transition

A Foresight Serious Game

Climate change, the technological revolution outpacing existing social structures, frameworks and thinking, the acceleration of feedback mechanisms through complex networks and many other phenomena that regularly frustrate the masses have become actual perceptions of futures [1]. The risks and now constant uncertainties of open systems focus many people’s attention on what will, could or should happen in the near or distant future, not only to assess potential opportunities but also to prepare for crises.

People are looking for new ways of thinking and new mechanisms for coping with and navigating through change. Foresight is an essential part of this transition, both in terms of ‘pop futures’ [2] and in terms of debates about the ontology, epistemology and hence methods of futures studies [3].

Gaming the future is an increasingly popular and documented area of foresight: many new games are emerging to support foresight activities. But gaming is not just a trend, it is becoming a necessary complement to the practice of foresight [4] for many reasons, such as the lack of time / energy available for the real acquisition of the academic knowledge needed to master the concepts, the dichotomy between experience and concepts, or the will and desire expressed by many of the new generation to find new ways and means of thinking about the future. 

In this way, games can make a valuable contribution to building foresight capacity.

Building foresight capacity

« Futures games’ embed diverse objectives from initiating futures activities to fostering imaginative collective intelligence and capacity building; ‘Foresight games’ focus more on testing systems and strategic behaviour. [5] Foresight-based ‘serious games’ combine the three themes – systemic transition, foresight and gaming.

Gaming the future is not just a recent phenomenon. Buckminster Fuller may not have invented the term, but many consider his development of the World Game to be foundational. 

Designed in the 60s, the World Game was intended to be a tool that would facilitate a comprehensive, anticipatory, design science approach to the problems of the world. The World Game that Fuller envisioned was to be a place where individuals or teams of people came and competed, or cooperated, to: Make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone. [6]

The ‘Navigating the Great Transition’ game, designed by Matthieu Denoual, Fabienne Goux-Baudiment et Kathryn McGlone,  is one among the serious games that addresses both building futures capacities and understanding the nature of our times.

Read the full article published in Q265 - Ateliers de futurs. Thanks for publication