Oceanopolis: Using Games To Promote Recycling

Jeff, Creative Director of Greenopolis, discusses their new game – Oceanopolis

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/cc-oceanopolis.mp3

Or listen to it here…

[wp_youtube]Fi3nZCkI31M[/wp_youtube]

Show Notes:
Interviewer: I’m here at Casual Connect in Seattle, and with me today is a special guest. How about you introduce yourself?

Jeff: Hi, I’m Jeff Smith. I’m the Creative Director of Greenopolis.

Interviewer: Can you talk about what Greenopolis is about? This is a little different than most other game companies or companies that do games. So, it would be awesome if you could give an overview.

Jeff: Sure. This is our first game, Oceanopolis, that we just announced yesterday. It’s in beta, and it’s officially launching on August 21st. But, Greenopolis is a three part company. We have physical kiosks that are in front of Whole Foods Markets and Rite-Aids that people can recycle and get points for.

We have our online component which is our website that we have a very robust community where people can blog and get points. And then, we’ve got a Rewards Program that ties those together, and the game moves into that Rewards Program in that it’s got real rewards that you can get for your real world actions and from your virtual actions.

Interviewer: And when you talk about recycling stuff, is it mainly recycling cans, recycling plastic, what is it?

Jeff: Right. At this point it’s about recycling PET plastic, HTEP plastic, glass, aluminum cans, and tin cans.

Interviewer: So, you have these kiosks, you have the blogging. What inspired you to get into gaming?

Jeff: What we like to do is we like to get our message out to the widest possible audience, and we have a lot of game mechanics on our website in that we gave people points and we gave them badges for things that they did on our site.

So, it just seemed like we could really effect a lot of change in people’s perceptions about recycling by reaching a very broad audience through a Facebook game.

Interviewer: Can you talk about some of the things that people could do on your website that would actually get them points or badges and stuff like that? You mentioned blogging.

Jeff: Sure. On our website you can blog, and that will get you points. You can comment on the blogs that others write. We have 60 professional bloggers that write stories every day for our site. If you comment on those sites, you’ll get points as well. And then, you’ll also get points if you go to our kiosks and recycle things.

Interviewer: What is the content that people are usually writing about on your site?

Jeff: Oh, it’s a broad spectrum. Yesterday we had a story about plastic bottles that were recycled into high fashion clothing. We do stories about art. We do stories about large corporations that are trying to make a difference instead of just being a part of the problem. We cover art and music.

We did a great story on a band. All of their instruments were made out of recycled garbage that they had pulled out of a junk yard which is beautiful music that they made out of what was essentially garbage before they got a hold of it.

Interviewer: So, you have this green company, and so now you implement Oceanopolis. Can you talk a little more about that and what inspired it and what it’s about?

Jeff: Sure. So, essentially and predominantly we’re a company that tries to increase recycling rates and the side of the business that I focus on, the content side, we’re trying to always find new content, new ways to connect with our audience to try to help them understand how to increase their recycling rates and to make the world a better place by taking small incremental steps.

We never like to say the world is coming to an end because there are plenty of sites saying that, but what we want to say is here’s something you can do today that will make your life better and will make the world better. And the game really opened that up.

When we started looking at the possibility of doing a game, what we found was that when you start playing the dynamics that are within the game, it really starts to sink in that trash is not garbage unless you make it garbage. It’s a treasure because this is what you’re picking up. Instead of farming or plowing the field, you’re picking up trash and picking it in a kiosk and getting points for doing that.

Interviewer: So, would you consider this like a serious game, or are you trying to stay away from that term because it usually turns people off versus you’re just trying to take what your demographic actually enjoys and just communicating your message to them?

Jeff: We’re actually trying to spread it just beyond our demographic. No, I wouldn’t call it a serious game. I’d call it a game that people would play for 15 minutes as a break from work, but in that 15 minutes you’re focusing on something that’s good as opposed to shooting people or doing something meaningless. You’re actually doing something that can become meaningful if you translate it into the real world.

Interviewer: So, while you play this game, you can earn points that you can, maybe, use to collect outside the game. Can you talk about that more? That’s a little different than most of the other games.

Jeff: Sure. The points are building out of a large Rewards Program. Right now, what we have are discount coupons for movies and events and restaurants in your neighborhood. So, there’s a good chance that at your favorite restaurant you can get 20 percent off from playing the game or recycling at kiosks. So that kind of real world action, I don’t think, has been seen before.

Greenopolis has over 100 partners. They range from household names like Pepsico and Whole Foods Markets down to small NGOs that focus on just increasing the conservation efforts in a small part of the country. So, our partners touch a lot of the country, and we’re hoping to get all of them involved in the Rewards Program so that we have a very robust Rewards Program for everyone to enjoy.

Interviewer: What are some of the challenges you’ve had while you were designing this game? Since you’re trying to have a physical component to it, anything pop up?

Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. It’s been a big learning experience for us. One of the things we came across first was how do you take picking up garbage and turn that into something where there’s a challenge because it just sounds like real work. In fact, the first iteration of this was nothing more than running around the island picking up one piece of garbage after another.

And so, finally your OCD kicked in, and it’s like, I’ve got to get this out and clean which was no fun and no one would ever come back after that. So, finding a game strategy that you can inject into a form of just picking up garbage was probably our biggest challenge.

Interviewer: And how did you go about addressing that issue? Did you just do a lot of prototypes? Did you do user testing?

Jeff: Yeah, pretty much user testing and beta testing. We started off with just a small alpha that we let people play with, and then we came out with a closed beta which ended yesterday when we announced our open beta. What we found was you have to limit play and then move on to another part of the game, you have to invite people to do something other than those things. And that seemed to solve that problem for us.

Interviewer: So, your game is on Facebook, and you’re targeting more of the casual demographic. When you say limited play, is it just limited to five minutes or two minutes or 15 minutes, or do you do what some of the other game companies are doing which is like you work on your system a little and then you help your friends out and stuff like that?

Jeff: Yeah. I really view this game as something that you play for a short period of time. It’s a fun, time killer as opposed to a game that people will sit in front of for two hours. Now, if they want to, they can. We do have plenty of interaction in there where people can buy more points. They can get more involved if they want to, but we really want, we really expect that this is a non-traditional gamer that will be coming to this game.

The demographics for our website are about two-thirds women, most of them 25 to 45. And we think that will also translate into the game. It’s going to be a non-traditional gaming audience.

Interviewer: Are there any other things that you’re deriving inspiration from in terms of games? There was a game out called Lil’ Green Patch that was on Facebook a while back. What from them can you borrow or where are you going to try to innovate, aside from the external Rewards Program?

Jeff: We actually spoke with the folks from the Lil’ Green Patch as they were closing their game down about how we might be able to get some of their users over to the game because it was similar to what we were doing. Unfortunately, the timing didn’t work out right, but there was nothing we could do there.

One of the ways we’re looking at this game is we’re going to have multiple views. Instead of just looking at your island, you’re going to be able to go underneath the water and work on the Pacific gyres. You’re going to be able to sail to your friends’ islands, to do things for them.

We’re going to incorporate a lot of things that you’ve seen in pieces in other games but never all put together into one big game.

Interviewer: Are there any challenges with keeping the game fun? You talked about closed beta and stuff like that. Any other things that you had to do to make sure that the game is first fun so people want to come back versus delivering the message and stuff like that?

Jeff: Yeah. I think one of the biggest challenges we’re going to have is keeping up with the users because you advance in levels pretty quickly. Coming up with new levels and new challenges and new ways to play is going to be an ongoing challenge for us, but we have budgeted money every single month to keep adding in new challenges, new rewards, new ideas. So, we hope we’re up to that.

Interviewer: Great. And so, you are on Facebook. Are you thinking about doing it on the open web? You talked about also expanding your demographic. Are you going to try to target kids? What’s…

Jeff: It’s interesting that you mentioned the kids. We have a program coming out in the fall called Scan at School which is like our kiosks, but instead of taking your garbage to the Whole Foods Market, the children can take it to their school and recycle there. And instead of getting the points they keep themselves, the points can be used to buy things for your classroom at school.

And we’ve talked about putting a version of Oceanopolis on Scan at School that the kids can play. The one issue that you run into in trying to port it outside of Facebook is so much of the game is social, and part of the fun is social and to challenge your friends.

So, we’re limited on platforms, I think, on this particular game, but I believe we can move into iPhone. I spoke with a couple of people here, and they seem to have their own social networks that would also work well. It’s going to be more limited than some games would be.

Interviewer: And where then can people find out more about the company and play the game?

Jeff: Oh, great. Yes. Go to Greenopolis.com. It is our main site. And then, if you want to find out more about the game, our Facebook fan page for the game is Facebook.com/Oceanopolis. And the game itself is at apps.facebook.com/Oceanopolis.

Interviewer: Great. Thank you very much.