CityOne is a new game by IBM that simulates a big city’s operations and challenges players to run cities and industries more efficiently given limited resources.
The game helps city planners, developers, and government agencies figure out how to address the challenges of running a big city, said IBM’s Phaedra Boinodiris, designer of the game. It’s not like SimCity, where you build a city from scratch; rather, you start with a big city and figure out what to do when things go wrong.
Missions in CityOne involve solving real-world business, environmental and logistical problems, learning how technology can revolutionize industries, exploring ways to accelerate process change, and controlling costs with a flexible IT infrastructure.
The game has more than 100 real-world scenarios that can help transform how planners deal with alternative energy, traffic jams, water crises, banking needs, and disruptions in retail supply chains.
In all of the missions, the user has to balance the city’s financial, environmental and sociological interests. You have to hit profit targets, increase customer and citizen satisfaction, and make the environment greener with a limited budget.
CityOne is related to IBM’s Smarter Planet theme, an initiative to get the world running on smarter and greener technologies.
Sources:
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/solutions/soa/newsletter/aug10/cityone.html
