RocketOwl Uses Social Gaming To Battle Deforestation

By: Talha Bhatti  |   September 13th, 2012   |   Business, Games, Living, O Canada

Canadian game development company, RocketOwl, is not your average start-up. The Ottawa based social and mobile game creator has a strong opinion about the need to protect our environment and the company is not afraid to let others know. In fact, the firm has tried to make sure that their tree friendly thoughts are front and center in their games and other business activities. RocketOwl recently announced their partnership with WeForest.org in the launch of Play2Plant. The tree planting campaign is an interesting twist on trying to get people involved in environmental efforts. The Play2Plant project follows player’s progress through a game and when they reach certain levels or milestones a tree will be planted in the real world.

 

RocketOwl’s first game release was GreenSpace in which players are SpaceJanitors sent into space to clean up the mess before it’s too late. The galaxies are portrayed as large waste dumps with their natural beauty completely ruined. As players start the cleanup process they will see their progress in the digital world and thanks to the Play2Plant project this will also have a parallel in the real world.

 

The Canadian game developer is using the technique of crowdsourcing to achieve environmental goals. Crowdsourcing is where a task, job or project is given out to the general public and a collective effort is used to come up with results. RocketOwl thinks that this combination of fun and social change is the right path and makes achieving otherwise daunting goals easy. The company expects the new Play2Plaant initiative to draw in a lot of gamers that will help the company battle deforestation by planting a large number of trees and deal with “carbon sequestration, water management, soil restoration, biodiversity and local economic development.”

 

Source: TechVibes

Photo: RocketOwl