The Futures Foundation

Massively Multiplayer Forecasting Games could offer a new tool for exploring the future, using "the wisdom of crowds" to imagine new solutions, according to the California-based Institute for the Future (IFTF), an independent non-profit organization.  The Institute has launched a new research platform composed of games designed to address real world problems.

"Chronicle the dark world of 2019. Then help us figure out how to fix it," says the IFTF, inviting players to participate in what they call the world’s first Massively Multiplayer Forecasting Game: Superstruct.

"More than just about imagining what lies ahead, Superstruct is about building a better, stronger future. It’s about inventing new ways to organize the human race and augment our collective human potential. 

"With Superstruct, IFTF introduces a revolutionary new forecasting tool.  Massively Multiplayer Forecasting Games (MMFGs) are collaborative, open source simulations of a possible future. Each one focuses on a unique set of 'future parameters', which we cull from IFTF’s forecast research. These parameters define a future scenario: a specific combination of transformative events, technologies, discoveries and social phenomenon that are likely to develop in the next 10 to 25 years.

"We then open up the future to the public, so that players can document their personal reactions to the scenario. Players are encouraged to 'imagine out loud' how their families, their local communities, their professions, or their extended social networks might respond to the game scenarios. They build websites from the future, keep blogs from the future, upload podcasts from the future, make videos from the future, develop research wikis from the future, and host discussion forums from the future. In short, they persuasively record, discuss, and debate the details of how they imagine their own personal futures might play out within the game parameters. In Superstruct, we’ll show you the world as it might look in 2019—and you’ll show us what it’s like to live there."

Superstruct is just one of a series of MMFGs that the Institute plans to launch this year. First to launch would be a forecasting game in partnership with United Cerebral Palsy , simulating a future reality of caring.

"The game will empower players of all ages to shape their personal collective futures by experiencing a future caregiving role today. Ultimately, the game will generate content, communities, and interest for a new UCP meta-community connecting people with disabilities."

Next, for three weeks beginning November 13, IFTF will be launching a collaborative forecasting game around earthquake simulation in collaboration with the Art Center College of Design's Design Matters program.

"If you live in California you probably know to get under your desk, and you may have a few energy bars at home. But what comes next? This project is designed to correspond with the USGS ShakeOut Week to help those living in the Los Angeles region simulate and prepare for a major earthquake."

Finally, later in the year, the Institute sasys its X2 will convene a wide variety of distinguished participants from the worlds of science and technology to contribute to the collective knowledge of the future.

"In this highly interactive platform, participants will submit signals—data points about discrete events, developments, discoveries, that are early indicators of potentially disruptive developments in science and technology. These signals will then be clustered into larger patterns and trends in the science and technology innovation landscape. Analytical and visualization tools will help users navigate, generate, and understand the content, and ultimately provide a high-level synthesis of key trends."

Several decades ago, founders of the Institute for the Future envisioned simulations and games as powerful ways for researchers to communicate effectively with one another, to learn more about a subject  by viewing it through the eyes of people with backgrounds and skills different from their own.

"IFTF has always been on the cutting edge of thinking about new ways to shape and define forecasting methodologies," said the Institute's press release.  "We continue down this innovative and exciting path with MMFGs, the newest IFTF forecasting platform."