Abstract
Play2Act3 is the third iteration of the Play2Act case study series, conducted within the GREAT project in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The study examines whether game-based surveys can serve as effective tools for eliciting and communicating citizens' views on climate-related policy dilemmas, a challenge that conventional consultation methods have persistently failed to meet.
Building on earlier iterations, the study adopted an iterative, mixed-methods design grounded in the Methodology for Interdisciplinary Research (MIR), embedding surveys directly within popular digital games and co-designing the instrument with UNDP to ensure political neutrality and institutional legitimacy. The resulting dataset combined quantitative and qualitative responses from a broad, demographically diverse player base rarely reached through traditional policy consultation.
The findings confirmed that games can function as meaningful environments for climate and civic engagement, particularly among younger players, who showed the greatest exposure to environmental messaging and the strongest belief in collective action. However, engagement was far from uniform. Middle-aged participants expressed high environmental anxiety yet remained sceptical of games as civic spaces, while those in financial difficulty demonstrated a clear awareness-efficacy gap, high concern paired with low confidence in their capacity to influence outcomes. A recurring subgroup of non-disclosing respondents, who exhibited systematic disengagement across all measures, was interpreted as a meaningful indicator of institutional distrust rather than a neutral data artefact. Throughout, effect sizes remained modest, illustrating that demographic variables alone account for only a fraction of variation in player attitudes.
Methodologically, the study highlights both the promise and the constraints of cross-institutional collaboration. The UNDP partnership strengthened the instrument's policy relevance and global accessibility, while limited uptake from game studios in the co-design process revealed structural barriers that future iterations will need to address.
Play2Act3 positions games-based engagement not as a replacement for deliberative consultation, but as a scalable and complementary tool, one that demands careful targeting, mixed-method follow-up, and sustained institutional partnership to realise its full potential.