The Making of World Without Oil

"'Players were happy to do stuff if our characters did it first. By the time we realized this simple truth, however, it was too late for some challenges. One of my characters was a 15-year-old girl, for example, so to show her with a WWO sign I needed to hire an actor, and I just couldn't arrange for an actor to play her in time.'"

Nova Barlow speaks to the creators of the ground-breaking Virtual reality Game, World Without Oil.

Read Full Article

If you want to find out what the world would be like when petroleum is no longer economical, I'd say that the last people you'd want to ask about it would be laymen.

Bongo Bill:
If you want to find out what the world would be like when petroleum is no longer economical, I'd say that the last people you'd want to ask about it would be laymen.

Hmm. Why? Seems to me the "laymen" determine what sort of oil shock you will have. If they buy bicycles, it will go one way. If they buy guns, it will go another.

I think that mainly it is because laymen, as a general rule, A) are easily influenced by politics and sensationalism, and B) haven't the slightest idea what oil is used for outside of fuel.

I'm sure there was enough of that going in, but less coming out, I think. Which was the point of the game - one of them, anyway.