Chevron's version of the SIMS

I don't know if you guys remember the SIMS before it became an excuse to watch digital people use the bathroom and have sex (kinda gives me the creeps even though a discrete digital cloud covers the vital areas of interest). Anyways, back in the day, the game was all about building a city from scratch and watching as things went to hell. As I remember, there were never enough firemen and the energy options were a bit limited. Anyways, Chevron has since partnered with The Economist to come up with a SIMS-like energy game entitled "Energyville." The game can be found on Chevron's green-propaganda page, www.willyoujoinus.com.


I recommend that people try it out and see what they think. In the game, you get two rounds (now, and 2015) to decide upon an energy portfolio and then you get ranked depending on how you succeed. I didn't do very well, possibly because I put too much wind, solar and biomass into my energy portfolio without very much petroleum or natural gas. I also pursued an aggressive energy efficiency policy while sacrificing GDP. It is hard to take the results seriously when Chevron is the one behind the game - making me suspect that they wanted a higher percentage of petroleum earlier, and more renewable options later. For example, they seem to assume that solar power will not become viable until 2030 based on their own research.

I do like the idea of having a game like this to spur debate and open-minded thinking. I assume that it is in this hopeful spirit that The Economist lent their name to the project. However, for such a game to be successful, it has be both vastly more complex and also more transparent.

Chevron actually makes their own E-cards now, a regular Hallmark. They were published in the New Yorker - check out this one below. . .