This game scenario, developed upon recommendations of the CIESM 2011 seminar in Göteborg, ignores time and budget constraints. A “free-roaming” environment – LA games or GTA series style – was selected for the storyline. More realistic versions are expected as an outcome of the debate.
MAIN CHARACTERS
Ahmed Rizzo (fisherman), 19 years old – mostly action
The ‘leading’ character. By playing this character, young and brave, the player will experience difficulties of the fishery sector, due to institutional constraints, racquet, and official legal regulations (which aim to guarantee sustainability). Naïve at the beginning of the game, Ahmed will get the more in more experienced (new fishing techniques, new strategies for growing economically and facing obstacles…) as the videogame goes on. His choices will also include some ethical concerns that will not prevent goals achievement (ex. to meet with success by means of fair vs. unscrupulous actions; environment respectful vs. damaging initiatives etc.)
Antonio Costello (politician, owner of ‘CFC’, a fishing Company) – mostly strategy
This character is mostly engaged in diplomatic deals and management of budget / resources (including fish stocks). Antonio viewpoint is rather comprehensive of the reality. Antonio is aware of the status of the sea, political constraints, economic challenges etc. The ethical concerns (i.e. conflicts of interest) obviously come along with choices at “VIP” level (ex. business vs. political priorities etc.).
Maria Papakis (marine researcher) – stealth-based / spy fiction
This character gets engaged in various enigmas. Maria will soon carry out her personal investigations. She will use her scientific background (and skills) to help for things going correctly. Maria priorities focus on the respect for the environment. Maria may be dragged (voluntarily or not) into bad choices (ex. as a consequence of her “career” ambitions) or underestimate the importance of “social issues” (i.e. the fisherman conditions) when prioritizing the environment… again the ethical issues have a highlight. This character provides the player with the possibility to explore (i.e. by virtual diving) the undersea space and discovering the magic world of the marine life.
MINOR CHARACTERS (NPC) – (sources of conflicts)
Some suggestions:
- Fish market (traders, unloaders, people buying etc.)
- Security force (Police, coastguard, civil defence etc.)
- Mafia, racquet
- Mayor, Public Administration
- Trade union, syndicate
- Research organisations, NGOs
- …
Along with the game evolution, characters may align themselves either with positive (faithful, honest, in compliance with the law) or negative (corrupted, violent, elements). This will obviously bring to conflicts among opposite (good and bad) parties.
CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
Suggestions:
- By dialogues >< Dialogues may be carried out by using pre-formatted phrases (either easygoing or aggressive) from a list to be accessed
- By promotional / sensitizing campaigns >< this can trig other players into a merging attitude
- Formal reports / complaints to ‘security force(s)’ >< in this case a preliminary action aiming to collect evidence / proofs against a target character might be foreseen
- Funds / resources allocation >< strategic actions of funds / resources allocation can be called, for example, to reorient a degraded situation so as to prevent worst consequences (ex. strikes, reprisals, resignations etc.)
SYNOPSIS / GAMEPLAY – (STORYBOARDS)
Fisherman storyboard:
Ahmed Rizzo, 19 years old inhabitant of a Sicilian suburb, works hardly to sustain his family (two brothers and three sisters). His father, working 7/7, 14 hours per day has a minimum salary. His mother, former cashier in a supermarket, lost the job. While looking for some black work in the harbour, as to his routinely life, Ahmed bumps in a toughs’ group beating a young (about 15 yrs old) boy. He instinctively steps in and suddenly feels in a real danger. Luckily, he is a kind of survivors. He has learned a lot during his childhood in the Sicilian suburb and that is why, at the end, he outflanks the three toughs who run away.
The young boy thanks and inform Ahmed about his situation. He is actually the son of a rich owner of a Fish Company, whom is also a powerful political representative, supervising the correct (legal) use of local maritime areas.
Once introduced to the rich father of the boy, namely Antonio Costello (one major character of the game), Ahmed benefits of his special offer to embark, as a sailor, in one of the fishing boat of Costello’s Company.
From that moment, Ahmed will experience various challenges, adventures and make choices that will bring him to various challenging events. Depending on those choices, he may be responsible of environmental threats or undertake special actions toward the sustainable use of the marine environment.
Politician storyboard:
Antonio Costello owns the ‘Costello Fish Company (CFC)’. He is an influential politician charged – inter alia – to control the sustainable use of the local maritime space and its resources. With the aim to educate his son to manage future responsibilities, Antonio commits him to control unloading activities of CFC boats at the dockside. Once, his son being late to come back home from work at the dockside, Antonio alerts the Security force. Few minutes later the boy appears. He is injured. Ahmed accompanies him. Informed (by his son) about the course of events, Antonio repays Ahmed for having saved his son by offering him a job. He proposes Ahmed to embark as a sailor for ‘CFC’ since next day. Ahmed accepts enthusiastically; thanks to this opportunity, he will provide his poor family with an additional, regular budget.
The events warned Antonio Costello about the state of poverty, juvenile delinquency and related social evils that beat down on his lovely town. Moreover, during a routinely walk around the coastline, he crosses a fishmonger selling banned articles such as sharks’ fishers, a collier made by sharks’ teeth, etc. What a disgusting scene!
Arguing with the fishmonger, Antonio is confronted with his first choice: (i) to join the black market activity (and become richer and richer); (ii) to simply ignore the situation or… (iii) to denounce / fight against it. This is the beginning of Antonio’s way. His choice will influence the other characters’ destiny since from this will depend, for example: the way Ahmed will exert his activity (legal/illegal, what he will be fishing and how, with whom he will deal etc.; the researcher’s investigation…
Researcher storyboard:
Maria Pakis is a young marine biologist who recently got a permanent position at the national research institute of her Country. Her studies focus on fish stocks distribution along the Sicilian coasts with respect, also, to the traditional ways of fishing. Maria is very fond of her studies and, more in general of marine life. Since her childhood, she is diving (her father was a professional diver). She therefore experienced directly all along her life the dramatic changes of the marine ecosystems and she is strongly decided to fight against further threats to the natural environments. Unluckily, the world she leaves in is far from being optimal; many fishermen do not follow the rules, industries contaminate (with or without permission) and, sometimes, the institutions that should intervene are lead by corrupted people. Working on some fish stocks analyses, Maria finds out a contraband of marine wildlife making use of local and international networks.
Since competent authorities get mixed up, Maria efforts to denounce it run into the buffers. As a young, inexperienced researcher, she feels threatened… and she does not know how to behave. They offer her money as a reward for keeping quiet. Worse yet, they propose to boosting her career while she will collaborate with them to produce (false) official expertise (so as to cover environmental threats due to some local industries’ activities). Here come ethical choices!
Regardless of her choice, Maria will cross both the politician Antonio Costello (i.e. during her inquiry on industrial impact on the marine environment), and the fisherman Ahmed Rizzo (i.e. during a sampling cruise onboard a ‘CFC’ boat).
Here are some further thoughts, inspired by the ideas of Dario and Valentino, on the game scenario: “Go fishing – or be a scientist“. Choose a boat, equipment and the crew. Want to win? Well, then you have some decisions to make. Or: solve the mystery. The game will let players roam the ocean for fish. Players can choose to fish or to “protect” – or both. The objective is to score as many points as possible. The points are awarded based on values set by experts. They should be based on sustainability facts – and demand. Some sort of News feed could be used to give hints – good and bad. Another approach is to ”find out” – to research. What is really going on, what is true or false? One idea is to introduce “extras”: small games or quizzes where players can score extra points. A high-score list should display current scores. To attract players, some sort of prize should be presented; doesn’t have to be much. A cool T-shirt every month?
Game play: New players start with a small rowing boat. After scoring points, they can upgrade. Upgrades are larger boats, more gear or instruments, more crew or larger areas to explore – or exploit. The game itself should be very simple; players score points by the number of fish they catch, and the type of fish (price/market demand). An ocean map will indicate where different species are. So, set your nets and GO! Go for the money. Then the ship phone rings (hidden number). It is a girl on the line. ‘Maria’ she says. She wants to hear what you think about…. (dialogue). She also asks if she can have your personal mobile number – “in case I need to reach you”, – “something big is happening”, she says – “can’t tell you more now. Have to go”. The player is asked to enter her/his cell-number or not. Later, one of the crew gets sick and has to return to shore. Ahmed Rizzo is the substitution. Ahmed and Maria can be used to create some sort of “tug of war” that the player has to manage. Then there is the mystery Maria hinted about. Could it be something concerning the third character; the “poet”? Could it be about a mysterious vessel that looks like a missile?
Final thoughts – for now: If the game could have a way somehow to communicate among users on real fishery issues, that would be good. Maybe players should be able to share images of “my biggest catch”, “my biggest storm” or “my best beach”, with “my favorite seafood receipt”. This might power some likes on Facebook. Social media are the best to start a grass fire. I like the idea of Ahmed and Maria as drivers in the game. The game also needs a strong and exiting plot/challenge, while being easy to play.
I find the characters of Ahmed and Maria really interesting. A role-play – or storytelling game – must rely on a plot with strong characters which players can see as protagonists or antagonists. These characters can be used to represent the player’s decisions and to play out a dramatic story. On the other hand, I believe that the politician/owner role of Antonio is difficult: his role is somehow too obvious, too predictable. May be a third role rather could be a poet, a secret blogger or just a fake researcher, a role that can do the unexpected or introduce mysteries?
In any case, the player should be in control of making or breaking the challenge. Ahmed and Maria can be used to create a dramatic story. The game itself has to be fun or addictive in order to grab lots of users. Most of all, it needs to give the players a very clear challenge or goal. The game concept needs to decide specifically whether the target audience is young people or consumers in general. My personal advice would be to focus on young people/students; where schools also will find curriculum reasons to use the game in educational schemes. Policy makers and commercial interests should also be considered, but I think they come second for a game like this.
I will post further ideas on a ‘fishing game’ scenario in a short while.
I admire your creativity on creating this game. The idea is very nice, interesting and FUN!… Keeping the game fun will be the main attractor for potential players.
The storyboards are very complete, as I see many people have already commented. There are many minor changes you could make (or not) to them, but in general I can see you have carefully considered them, and the character’s stories are useful for the aims of the game. The fact that the characters are interconnected is crucial and you have done a great job on it!
Also, I want to say that I totally agree with adding knowledge as part of the game. Geographic knowledge is a great idea you had… It could also have some “extra points” for getting to know the species of fish, and/or marine mammals, and/or turtles, etc… or have small quizzes in the middle of a certain mission that ask about knowledge OF THE AREA (see below).
And this is the main point I want to make:
In recent years, video games have also become useful tools for science. I propose to add real data to the program, for example each zone of the world’ oceans could represent a level in the game. Communication between the programmers, game creators, and scientists would be crucial in this. Bringing real species of the zone, real political and socio-cultural data, (i.e. variation on the levels of corruption permitted; having different kinds of contact in each level; number of fishermen), etc could make the game not only more interesting but more useful. Scientists specialized in different areas can be asked to provide a scientific question about the area, for example a strategy for the fishery management of a specific zone (represented by a level in the game). This will allow a collective intelligence approach to solving the problem: crowd sourcing has become a powerful tool for scientists of the world (http://www.clickadvisor.com/downloads/Brabham_Crowdsourcing_Problem_Solving.pdf). Different video games have demonstrated that collective intelligence can provide better and faster solutions for scientific questions. The videogame “fold-it” is a great example of this (http://fold.it/portal/info/science). Children and teenagers have great creativity and an open mind which hasn´t been enclosed within a certain way of thinking. A 13-year old girl was able to solve a third-dimension solution for a protein, which scientists were unable to solve before! The solution was captured by the scientists database, and was published with the child’s name on the article!
This will close the entire circle; scientists will provide a real scientific question, relevant and pertinent; programmers will make this possible in a fun way. It will increase awareness in players and educate them about the problems associated with fisheries, and at the same time collective intelligence will be working towards scientific answers. It has to potential to come up with alternative and innovative solutions for the problems, giving information to scientists who can then implement these new strategies in real life.
Hello Anastasia,
Thanks for your enthusiastic support. As you said, the potential of videogames to solve some scientific problem has been clearly demonstrated by the success of the ‘Foldit-online game’. Videogames provide an optimal framework to bring together the strengths of computers and humans. In fact, participants to our CIESM brainstorming exercise in Göteborg last year concluded that videogames are giant leaps for citizen science! Given our difficulties to sustainably manage fisheries worldwide, we assume that a tool allowing stakeholders to “play with a real-scenario” can help advance dialogue. For example, it would be worthwhile to show ‘Mediterranean’ fishermen that science-based regulations at a “regional scale” could help them by preventing ‘outsiders’ to destroy their local resources … For this purpose we need to conceive the game as close as possible to the real context (including research models based on real data). It would be really helpful to receive concrete contributions by fishermen telling us about their real experiences/personal stories so as to better sketch ‘Ahmed’ storyboard. Laura Giuliano.
Excellent idea! A video game will most certainly will help to increase the people awareness and involvement in environment protection and sustainable choices. Just a few comments:
1. I think that the story of how Ahmed Rizzo (fisherman) meets with the politician’s son should change. As a parent, I also believe that it is important to urge our children to take up initiatives and learn how “real money” is being earned, but the thought of sending a 15-year-old boy to work in a fish wharf (also being the son of a politician) without supervision, seems rather risky… Perhaps a better scenario is that the child went there to surprise his father, or by his own choice (in that way we show children that sometimes wrong choices – something that they will probably come across later on in the game – lead us to unpleasant situations)
2. Antonio Costello seems like a heavenly politician, who is not corrupted by the system and in our world (unfortunately) this is rarely the case. Maybe his involvement into politics could be removed and just present him as a strong business man (why not of the “good” kind, with environmental sensitivity and strong involvement in conservation/policy making) that can pull some strings. Perhaps political issues (e.g. new regulations, restrictions etc) could be a “default” in the game that the player would have to confront in his attempt to sustainably use the resources
3. NGO representatives are proposed as minor characters… Given the increasing power they grow and the on-growing involvement of public in NGOs and their actions/activities, I think that the player could be able to play such a character and see how and where the choices he makes lead the fish stocks, the sector, etc, given the socio-economic, politic and environmental constrains he has to face.
As a continuation of my previous post, I think that students, both under- and post-graduates, have a lot to contribute to this exercise, not only because they are probably more familiar with video games than many of us but also because of their fresh insights. Quite specifically, I very much believe that entraining students of ichthyology, fisheries, fisheries ecology, conservation and management to contribute to the forum will be beneficial. Under this perspective, I have assigned a working short ‘paper’ to the first-year students of the MSc program ‘Hydrobiology and aquaculture’ (Department of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) in which they will provide their thoughts for this fisheries conservation video game. Their response will be posted here in about two weeks from now. I can only encourage others to do the same with relevant students.
Very interesting comments by both Javier and Yves. Yes, such a game is indeed an excellent idea. The game could be engineered to represent initially a simple ecosystem (for example phytoplankton, zooplankton, one herbivorous fish species, one zooplankton-eating fish species, one piscivorous fish species,one species of marine mammal) and accommodate a full set of e.g. ecopath equations governing changes due to fishing. Thus, different scenarios could be explored and the game would evolve based on the actions and decisions of the main characters. One important stakeholder to be also involved is the media and how they interact with/ affect politicians/decisions/public awareness. Thus, when main stocks are down, media coverage can increase pressure for reducing fishing by implementing measures. I guess that all this can be operational within an open-world game framework (i.e. as e.g. Grand Auto Theft IV, for PS3) in which stakeholders can expand the game area and explore different scenarios. More soon.
Hi Yves, thanks for your interesting posting. You are possibly right that Antonio is not very much in the politician’s role of having to find equilibriums to pressures of different origin (environmentalists, economic lobbies, the fishery sector,…). This is probably more in the minor actor now identified as the Public Administration since the top of this administration is under politician’s control. A bit more of weight to this role could also enrich the socio-political dynamics because it opens the door to another actor not yet contemplated in the game, the media. Media may play on the side of economic lobbies (because of capital or revenue control) but its potential to modify political dynamics is enormous if they take the flag of an environmental issue.
Like you, I tend to se Antonio more on the money side. A big company is probably further removed than an artisanal fleet from the environmental damage that human activities create in the sea. Your proposition of Antonio following money whereas Ahmed becomes a leader of the small-scale fishery opens the door to a key issue in the present exploitation of marine resources: in many areas of the world industrial fishing is damaging artisanal captures which sustained local communities for centuries. This is could be a growing conflict between Antonio and Ahmed.
As a scientist myself, I find fascinating the role of Maria. In here I tend to see the issue slight differently than Yves. Being away from the technical administration and more in the scientific world, Maria will suffer two pressures. On one side she will be formed in the very exigent school of “transmit the truth as it is” that science is. She needs to do it to progress in her career and to be loyal to her scientific vocation. On the other side, she will be working for an administration that might potentially leak the pressure of some lobbies towards her.
Again, I very much agree with you that fishermen knowledge should be part of the game dynamics. The good thing is that science has methods to do the mixing between traditional and scientific knowledge in ways that I guess (I am not an expert in videogames) can be incorporated to the algorithms inside videogames.
This is part of what I find more exciting in the CIESM idea. Initially it seemed to me rather weird. However, while driving mega-cars in the PS3 of my teenage son, I started to recognize that the algorithms inside these devices are science/engineer based. Then I realized that the equations we use to analyze ecosystem could somehow be introduced into them. If video games can make a father of family in his forties to experiment a Ferrari in a Formula 1 race, then they can also help transmit to the general public the sense of a scientist on ecosystem dynamics. Hopefully, this could also aid to transmit the acute need for a responsible managing of marine ecosystems from the science arena to the society.
Best, Javier
I have some comments about the three main characters of the storyboard:
- Antonio Costello looks to me more like a private entrepreneur than a politician. If he is one, we know nothing about his political stance. Therefore, he looks rather like an “enlightened” businessman who may have and should have tight links with some politicians who are thus missing into the picture.
- Another missing actor is the technical expert who is acting within the regional fisheries management organisations. In between science and policy, he or she may have quite different considerations in regard to fisheries regulation and management in comparison with a local scientist acting in a national research institute (Maria).
- the fisherman, Ahmed, is a mere sailor on a big fishing boat, so it seems difficult for him to take any initiative in regard to the way of fishing. It would be a different story if, after his first experiment in the large-scale fishing industry, he would decide to go on its own as a small-scale fisherman and, for example, becomes a leader within the local/national fishery management organisation.
Another point which the storyboard could take into consideration is the knowledge matching between scientific results and local ecological knowledge actually detained by fishermen (and not just the mere “predictability of fish stocks distribution”).
Cheers, Yves Henocque
The proposed game offers a huge variety of opportunities and options to further extend the player’s knowledge on sustainable fishery. In particular,
- Ahmed, the fisherman, might be used to display different fishing techniques as well as the degree of predictability of fish stocks distribution. In this case, some ‘geographic’ details would be necessary so as to propose reliable models (if any?).
- Maria, the marine researcher, provides an optimal means of enjoying direct exploration of life in the marine environment (i.e. virtual diving” and taxonomic identification of the various species that will be encountered), studying the ecology of the marine environment (i.e. through Maria’s lectures at the University), measuring the impact of different industrial activities on the natural marine environment (i.e. during Maria’s experimental activity).
- Antonio, the politician, paves the way to analyse strategies for improved management of marine resources (including comparison of economic scenarios based on cost/benefit analyses).