The use of serious games, where the primary purpose is not entertainment, provides an opportunity to support decision-making on trade-offs in urban policy areas such as climate, biodiversity, and well-being. They provide an innovative and robust methodological foundation for expert and stakeholder discussions on the future-oriented urban interventions and transformative changes in cities. These games can assist policymakers in identifying and unlocking trade-offs related to planning for sustainability transformations in Finnish cities.
This policy handbook outlines the potential of serious games to support cross-sectoral planning for urban sustainability transformations with a case example of a serious game co-development process and implications in city of Lahti.
Key insights for policymakers:
- A co-created serious game can serve as a platform to support urban planning for just sustainability transformations by creating a learning and negotiation platform that brings together the science of sustainability, the boundary conditions of planning and the diverse preferences of citizens and politicians.
- Serious game results can point towards most acceptable and effective urban planning decisions by collecting, confirming and prioritizing the different options in a stakeholder and expert forum.