According to academics from Lancaster University, planners are missing a trick when it comes to encouraging and involving the public to help shape their own towns, cities and counties for the future. And they believe that games platforms could be used to plan future cities and help the public immerse themselves in these future worlds.

The researchers have modified Colossal Order’s game ‘Cities: Skylines’, in which players control zones, public services and transportation. Real-world buildings and models can be imported into the game to create model cities and inform planning decisions.

Players must add infrastructure, manage power, water and think carefully about what is needed for their community. They can manage services such as education, police and fire, healthcare, and even set tax policies, among other simulations. The game dashboard even measures the happiness levels of citizens.

The Royal Town Planning Institute reports that only 20 per cent of younger people are interested in planning, but the use of digital games, say the researchers, enables the public to ‘play’ real-world planning policies based on a ‘real world’ place, which creates a dialogue with planners.

Dr Paul Cureton and Professor Paul Coulton, from ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University’s design-led laboratory, shared their research in an open-access article, ‘Game based world-building: Planning, models, simulations and digital twins’, published in the scientific journal, Acta Ludologica. Their research, funded by the Digital Planning Programme, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), cites a lack of public interest in planning and a need for “urgent change” to address this issue.

Missed opportunities

Gaming technology has been used in 3D planning models and what are called city information models (CIMs), and urban digital twins (UDTs). The latter are described as virtual replica systems of an environment that are connected to real-world sensors, such as traffic or air quality, to enhance public participation and engagement in the planning process and generate future scenarios.

However, say the researchers, while this is a good step forward, the use of gaming technology for real-world applications is “one-directional and misses opportunities” to include game design and research, such as mechanics, dynamics, flow, and public participatory world-building for future scenarios. They believe the technology can be used for higher levels of citizen engagement by making the process more enjoyable. The method, they add, is cost-effective and can be rolled out across the UK by any local authority.

The researchers have already conducted gaming workshops alongside Lancaster City Council with 140 children to ‘play’ and plan the city, in an area to be developed along with Lancashire County Council and national housebuilder Homes England, and previously considered for a new garden village featuring 5000 homes.

Building on a long tradition

According to the researchers, digital games have a long tradition of providing simulations of various systems of human activities, including politics, culture, society, environment, and war. Urban planning itself has been simulated through various city-building games, such as the ‘Summer Game’ (1964), EA Games, ‘SimCity’ (1989), and Colossal Order’s ‘Cities: Skylines’ (2015, 2023), among many others.      

However, while a range of future urban planning scenarios use gaming technology, they do not necessarily incorporate game design ideas, such as mechanics and dynamics, levels, progress, flows and feedback, as part of a game world. The researchers argue that this needs to be better understood if such systems are to realise potential benefits in citizen engagement more fully.

Dr Cureton and Professor Coulton have created a reference tool for new planning models. Their article in Acta Ludologica explores the role of world-building games in urban planning, architecture, and design, developing a playable, theoretical urban game continuum to illuminate the various nuances of a range of precedents and shape future applications.

Arguably, by not capitalising on gaming technologies for real-world planning, opportunities are lost to engage players in changing the rules of the system being replicated. The researchers assert that this is much needed, as new governments will look at what urgent change is required in planning to address the shortfall in housing provision and help stimulate economic growth. And to do this, planners will need support, skill development, and the tools to engage people.

The Royal Town Planning Institute states: “Response rates to a typical pre-planning consultation are around 3 per cent of those directly made aware of it. In Local Plan consultations, this figure can fall to less than 1 per cent of a district.”

Professor Paul Coulton commented: “While games and game playing are often dismissed as trivial or problematic, they can serve as powerful tools in delivering information and understanding of how systems operate, in a manner that can the lead to real world engagement in processes that previously seemed opaque."

Dr Paul Cureton, whose work focuses on subjects in spatial planning, 3D GIS modelling, and design futures, noted that given how few people engage in how places could and should be transformed, “there is space for gaming in this field to provide and help the public think like planners, play issues, and use gaming tools for modelling future spaces.”