Gamifying Risk Communication : The Game of Mortality

Scholars have long recognized the difficulties of communicating risk to the public. The rise of mobile gaming presents unprecedented opportunities for risk communicators to reach millions of potential users in engaging and potentially effective ways. Gamifying risk communication may help users build knowledge bases about risk, improve risk contextualization skills, and strengthen analytical skills for evaluating risk information. In some cases, gamifying risk communication may also provide social benefits, both by increasing the public's ability to evaluate risk, and by helping narrow the risk perception gap between experts and laypeople.This paper describes the mechanics, style, and content of “Mortality,” a mobile gaming application designed to help people understand how different mortality risks compare to one another. The game structure can serve as a template for gamifying risk communication in other contexts, and for using gamification to enrich the public's tools for risk analysis