Via Andreas at Asynkron: a link to the winners of theDanish Internet Award 2006. In Danish only. The winner of the main price is the "game" "Ombygningsspillet" (The Redecoration Game) which I eagerly played for a while. Heck, you could win d.kr. 100.000 to redecorate/refurnish your house with. The objective of the game was to fix, paint, do the plumming, electricity, furniture in 4 rooms in an imaginary 2D apartment - and by doing this raising the sell value of the apartment. Like in real life, all this redecorating costed a lot of money, so you had to take out loans and pay the mortgage. The game was related to one of the home decorating "reality shows" on Danish tv. It worked well for most of the time, also as a simulation, and with small nice details, like the fact that you could leave a note for your "neighbours" (another player) and this way get in touch with other players. However, the simulation was somewhat out-of-proportions: once you had bought the materials for a room and hired 1 out of 3 available workers to do the hard work for you, it took about 4-7 real life days before they got their work done (which is fine, because that probably mimicks real life to a certain degree). However, you were also asked to pay your mortgage approx once a week (!) which had me broke several times during the game. In Denmark you'd normally pay your mortgage once every 3rd month.. So they had implemented two different game times, that didnt go well together, and that eventually made me give up on the game. But deservedly, nevertheless, that they won - because it shows that by actively involving users in a simulation, you get them to think about "serious" issues like loan types, house prices etc in a much more engaged way than any standard banner commercial could do.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 11:54