How online games can motivate sustainable behaviour

Online games can help to encourage sustainable behaviour by appealing to people's desire for competition.

It's not news that social media helps us project an enhanced version of ourselves, enables us to win approval from friends and strangers, and in our atomised world, feel part of a wider community.

Increasingly, it's also helping us fulfill another basic human desire: to win. Online games with points and prizes are where it's at – not just for business but for political campaigns, charity giving, tackling obesity, quitting smoking.