“I was there for two reasons. The first was simply to support the blockade, for all the same reasons that everyone else was there. But the second one has to do with game design and with imaginative possibilities. For the last year, the Anticiplay project team has been keenly interested in building bridges between games and activism”
“Games that engage with sustainability issues often strike a dull, didactic and managerial tone, treating climate change and connected issues like technocratic puzzles to be solved and planned through”
“This is in such stark contrast with the realities of climate politics. Those realities are full of conflict, corruption and entangled interests, and, of course, activism and protests”
“A core sociological theory that our Anticiplay team works with is the notion of interaction rituals. Interaction ritual theory can be used to understand why and how people get energized and motivated by doing meaningful things together”
“There is an experiential, embodied and ritual aspect to activism, and especially to public actions like the A12 blockade. Activism can also be deeply exhausting and frustrating, and activist burnout is real. However, it can be profoundly connective, energizing and empowering as well”
“When game designers are deeply entangled with and committed to the realities of activism, we are developing experiential and embodied understandings of what it means to fight for the planet. Our goals shift, we become more committed. We meet new people and become part of activist communities. We make different games. And we weave the resonant experiences and salient details about activism into those games — making those realities more accessible”