A mobile gaming app to change you lifestyle?

Have you ever imagine one day real world can actually linked up with the virtual world. What you did in the real world actually reflects in the digital world and vise versa. Noe it may become true.

The mobile app: Airnergy

Airnergy is a mobile app (Red Dot Award) that merges the features of gaming and utility. Your real-world energy consumption data will be reflected in the virtual world and affects the in-game environment to encourage users to minimise daily energy consumption and  air pollution, eventually create a better place to live.

The interface of the mobile app Airnergy

It is a good idea to attract the young people and educate them as well. Because many things that we think are difficult to do can seem easier and have more motivation when turned into a game.The game also have the competitions features between friends which stimulate people to continue playing so that they can achieve better scores and win , also the in-game environment will change according to users’ real-life energy consumption data. What I think the game developer is really smart is users can earn bonus points to buy in-game products by attending green activities, such as tree planting, or purchase energy-saving products. 

Here comes the negative side of this design concept, games usually cannot keep ones' passion for long, maybe one month, one week or even just one day. Also usually young people are living with their parents or friends, unless they can affect their parents of friends to reduce the energy consumption or they may give up very soon. 

However, I think in this digital stage, it is always good to promote the sustainable lifestyle using the mobile app. Instead of focusing on the immediate result of reducing energy consumption, we should focus on the long term development. How reduce the energy consumption in the future 10 years? By making sustainable living as a easy and fun topic definitely is a good starting point. It may even applicable on topics like waste management, water management etc.

Reference:
Airnergy _ Innovating Mobile App for Reducing Daily Energy Consumption. (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2016, from http://www.red-dot.sg/en/online-exhibition/airnergy/