City building games are now being used in real world urban planning

“Since the release of Cities: Skylines last year, we’ve seen our creative players use it to design thousands of different things, from clever road layouts and traffic simulations to recreations of entire real-world cities.” —Susana Meza Graham, COO of Paradox Interactive

My Urban Playground is a documentary about video games and urban planning that centers on the topic of “How games can change the world and the way we build our future cities“.  

It debuted at “The Swedish Affair” program track at South by Southwest Interactive, with a screening on Sunday, March 13, 2016, in Austin, Texas; an event where politicians, architects, civil engineers, game developers and Cities: Skyline players came together and discussed urban planning topics.

These included minimizing traffic problems, improving energy systems and designing public spaces. 

In the future, video games are going to become even closer to the reality, allowing people to participate in world changing programs.  Even looking back have already been examples of games helping solving worldwide issues.

In 2011, a Fold.it player helped decipher the crystal structure of Mason-Pfizer money virus, an AIDS-causing monkey virus which had been unsolved for 15 years. It took about three weeks to do in the game. In 2012, the creator of Minecraft joined the UN to create a revolutionary project called Block by Block. It allows Minecraft players to change their neighborhood by building designing them in game. Now, the game is also used to teach Ecology.

Now, it seems that Cities: Skyline is going to be used as a “urban planning simulator,” allowing gamers to help find more effecient solutions to urban planning issues.