A Facebook Game that relates to the Real LIfe

 When most people play a game on Facebook they do it for fun. But what if there was a game that is fun but also help to inforce recycling. Well there is, it's called Oceanopolis. I found this article called Can a Facebook Game Really Boost Recycling at http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/10/can-a-facebook-game-really-boost-recycling.php?campaign=th_rss. I was drawn to this article because it had to do with facebook and I wasn't sure if this game was actually going to teach people anything.
   This article talks about the company Greenopolis and how they came up with a new way to motovate people to recycle. When recyclers take cans and bottles to kiosk's they earn points that can give them coupons for restaurants, theaters, and retail shops. From this idea they decided to expand it to Facebook with a game call Oceanopolis. In this game you own your own island and have to keep it beautiful by recycling all the bottles that wash up onto your island. By creating this game Greenopolis is hoping to expand social media dn boosts awareness about real-life kiosks. Another feature they added to this game to encourage people to play is that you can earn points that can be added to your real life Greenopolis kiosks. The company believes that by 2020 the amount of recycled items will triple. In the article the question, is it really going to work comes up. The response to that is that they are familiarizing the players with how to us Greenopolis kiosks and if people are going to play games why not teach them the benefits of sustainablility.  In this article a negative comment is brought up, what if people are just sitting around using up electricity earning up points to consume more items and not taking the step in real life. Then the game doesn't do any good at all.
   Here is a trailer for the game Oceanopolis


I decided to look up and find some more information about Oceanopolis and went to the Greenopolis webstie http://greenopolis.com/games/oceanopolis/help. Under the category "What's this Greenopolis Recycling Kiosk all about?" it talks about Greenopolis putting up thousands of  Recycling Kiosks acroos the U.S. It says this is going to help wiht our plastic problems and that when you recycle you earn points that can be turned into coins on Oceanopolis. Once you fill up your pockets you go to the website and it shows you how many coins you've earned. A bonus is that sometimes companies will give people "special offers".

In environmental class we've been talking about statistics and this kinda relates because we're using the statistics that most people use the internet and play games to reach people on the idea of sustainability.

At first I thought this was a really cool idea let's teach and encourage people to recycle and we'll give them a reward. Then after reading about it on the Greenopolis page I thought it was a bad idea because the way I took it was that all the stuff you recycle gives you coins on a game. I don't recieve anything from those coins and I already recycle and get nothing from it. Just getting coins from an online game makes the whole concept bad no one wants coins for a game especially when their are people that already recycle and don't care to play games. This game does teach people how to recycle but I'm not sure if it will kept people playing for long.