Fear fends off disaster, but does fear give us the tools to manage risk? Do we need to spend precious time learning complex risk management techniques? Perhaps not: learning disaster reduction techniques could be as easy as playing a game.  “Well-designed games, like risk management measures, involve decisions with consequences. While games can never fully capture the complexity of climate risk management decisions, through gameplay these complexities can be revealed, discussed, and processed,” writes Pablo Suarez, the Climate Centre’s associate director for research and innovation.

Games Enable Intuitive Learning 

Along with a team of scientists, the Climate Centre of the Red Cross and Red Crescent and the Parsons School of Design have developed more than 45 games that address a wide range of issues, including food security, road safety, supply chain logistics in humanitarian relief, climate-resilient coastal development, urban waste management, and disaster preparedness and response, as well as gender and improved cooking stoves for better health. Each game reveals the complexities that arise across different sectors, timescales, and space, thus stimulating decision-making based on changing realities and enabling an intuitive understanding of complex and interrelated risk management actions. The interactive games raise players’ awareness about their own (and their group’s) behavior, and teach them new skills in disaster risk reduction and prevention techniques.

Most importantly, the games build on positive, proactive approaches rather than fear. Early studies by the Climate Centre have shown that the use of fear creates a counter-productive numbing effect instead of acting as a catalyst for informed action.  By throwing his frisbee at the White House, Suarez taught his audience more about the path and velocity of a hurricane than several doomsday films.  Games help us understand disaster without spurring the negative feelings often associated with complex and distressing topics. 

Games for Change

The Climate Centre is not the only group producing and using games for change.  Others, including major UN agencies, the World Bank, bilateral agencies, and relief operations, are also using games to inform policymakers, community program participants, local mayors, and households.  Arguably, games can spread awareness and education much more effectively than closed door conferences, lectures, and billboards. Presenting challenges as a game can reveal a hidden wealth of talent, ability, and novel solutions.

In 2012, the New Climate Task Force, at a seminar at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of Long-Range Future at Boston University, considered the synergy between games and real-world climate risk decision-making. The Task Force, led by Suarez, continues to build on society’s prevalent use of games, across entertainment, advertising, and corporate retreats, to enable the understanding of difficult and scary topics that we may otherwise be reluctant to face.

Every year, the Parsons School of Design holds the Games for Change conference, which convenes game developers, policymakers, schools, and students to explore how games can accelerate learning.  The conference attracts a range of speakers, from UN food aid workers to business entrepreneurs, to discuss how games can be used to improve awareness and enable positive action. For example, the Games for Change conference, together with the U.S. Department of Education, developed a game to enable the detection and the consequences of natural disasters.

A New Game: “Monopoly” for Disaster Risk Insurance

The risk of danger from climate change is increasing, particularly for people in high density and low-lying urban areas.  As urbanization and GDP concentration continue to grow, the effects of climate volatility will likely increase the impact of disasters on households and countries at all economic levels. If governments are to preserve their economic and social gains, they will need to coordinate risk management and teach disaster preparedness.

But how many of us think about preparing for the next Hurricane Sandy or Katrina? Climate risk management games could help teachers communicate what has become (in some cases) a controversial topic; they could help students and their families prevent losing their homes and lives. Such games could also improve understanding of the role of disaster risk insurance, which is a technical concept not well understood by the public.

I propose that a new game, which could be developed with the assistance of scientists, the insurance industry, banks, and housing developers, could help students better understand the role of disaster risk insurance.

How to Play:

Object of the Game: To simulate risk management techniques applied in disaster risk insurance.

Players: There are two or more teams of seven players. Each team will build a specific project (whether a school, housing community, or hospital), and will consist of the following players (experts):

• The builder, who seeks to develop a new housing community, school, or hospital.
• Five experts, who advise the builder on where it is safe to build the new housing development, school, or hospital – and at what cost:
  • The scientist provides climate maps.
  • The risk modeler provides the results of simulated events (e.g., the likelihood of a major flood, earthquake, or fire in 5 – 10 years).
  • The actuary and the insurance expert indicate how much insurance will cost, based on the estimated frequency and severity of the risk.  
  • The banker evaluates the financing proposal submitted by the builder.
  • The insurance regulator will review each group’s risk management strategy, and may reject one or more, sending a given group back to the drawing board (a bit like slipping down the slide in Chutes & Ladders).

Game Play: The builder’s access to insurance and financing will be determined on the basis of their ability to offset a series of climate and other disaster risk challenges that are assigned on a probabilistic basis by the game. The builder consults with the experts by:

• Referring to the hazard maps provided by the scientist;
• Running various scenarios under the risk model;
• Requesting that the actuary re-assess the risk-based pricing of insurance, if the building site or construction material is changed;
• Reviewing these assumptions with the insurance company representative; and,
• Submitting the proposal to the banker to obtain the cost of financing.

The banker reviews the assumptions relating to the geo-coded location of the project and the opportunities to maximize value and offset risk to the loan. The banker will check the information provided by the builder with the same experts, and if the risks are considered acceptable, determine the financing rate. 

Each group will seek to ensure their project can move forward, if their risk management strategy is approved by the insurance regulator.

The winning group will be determined by their project’s resilience to a disaster risk as assigned by the game.  By learning and applying the major risk management techniques, the group of players will simulate the collaborative risk management techniques that are currently applied in the insurance, finance, and construction industries, and, thereby, develop the information and potential skill sets that could enable them to help prevent disasters in their homes, communities, and countries.