Marketing Sustainability through Mobile Gaming

Previous studies have indicated that awareness is one of the most important tools to positively influence people and their behaviors. This information has inspired my research project titled Marketing Sustainability through Mobile Gaming, which aims to study whether mobile gaming is an effective way to raise awareness. In this video, I go over my three-year research journey and the obstacles I’ve faced. I also discuss new insights I’ve learned this semester and the future steps required to finish this project.

We all have a responsibility to ensure that what we’re doing isn’t hurting the beautiful planet where we live. But what if we don’t know how to be sustainable?

Hello everyone, my name is Yasmin Jubran and I’m currently working with my mentor Professor Anne Lauer on a research project titled marketing sustainability through mobile gaming.
When I was doing the literature search for this three year-old project, I’ve found out something very concerning: students aren’t aware about on-campus sustainability initiatives. In 2021, I did an informal survey that asks students about their awareness of current sustainability programs on-campus. Out of the 83 anonymous responses only 19.3% answered ‘Yes’. This percentage was derived from people who cared enough about sustainability to answer the survey. Therefore, when the people who care about sustainability aren’t aware, then the actual reality is almost certainly far worse than what the results show.

Awareness is one of the most important tools to influence people. When students in the University of California were enrolled in a sustainability course for a research study, it was found that the increase in awareness caused positive changes in students’ sustainability behaviors.

The purpose of my research project is to study whether mobile gaming is an effective way to raise awareness.

This semester, I’ve worked on developing a mobile game prototype that has educational undertones yet is still entertaining. To do this, I needed to understand what would motivate players to play my game over other competitive substitutes. So, I talked with gamers to understand what type of games interests them.

After these discussions, I’ve come up with a general description of the game in the hopes that it will be as popular as the game Animal Crossing. The main character Honey the Bee goes through a sustainability adventure, and throughout her journey she tries to overcome a big sustainability challenge. However, I’ve learnt that creating a game with this description was much more complex than my research initially suggested.

For this project to continue, the next step would be to make a prototype. But forming a team of coders is this project’s biggest obstacle. To find some volunteers, I’ve tried reaching out to student organizations, game design students, and different professors. I even created a Game Design Volunteer posting on a website I’ve made. However, with the very competitive nature of this industry, I couldn’t find volunteers who would be willing to work on any project of this kind for free.

In the future, to answer the question whether mobile gaming is a good tool for awareness, I envision volunteers playing the prototype. They would complete two surveys, one before they play the game and one after. I would also interview them to go into greater depth about their experience and the knowledge they’ve gained. The information I will have gathered would be helpful to determine whether mobile gaming can be used to change their awareness levels and behavior. Ultimately, this information will be useful to further game development that is both fun and educational.