Nomic

Nomic is a game created in 1982 by philosopher Peter Suber in which the rules of the game include mechanisms for the players to change those rules, usually beginning through a system of democratic voting.

Nomic is a game in which changing the rules is a move. In that respect it differs from almost every other game. The primary activity of Nomic is proposing changes in the rules, debating the wisdom of changing them in that way, voting on the changes, deciding what can and cannot be done afterwards, and doing it. Even this core of the game, of course, can be changed.

— Peter Suber, The Paradox of Self-Amendment

The term robust is introduced here because it is a central term for the type of institutions Ostrom intends to help develop. She explains what is normally meant by robust: “[Kenneth] Shepsle considered a system to be robust if it was long-lasting and the operational rules had been devised and modified over time according to a set of collective-choice rules (which themselves might be modified more slowly over time within a set of constitutional-choice rules, which were modified, if at all, very unfrequently). ...

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Although the constitutional-, collective- and operational-choice levels of rules and rule-making are analytically differentiated here, Ostrom notes that self-organizing and self- governing people in field settings “go back and forth across levels as a key strategy for solving problems” (E. Ostrom 2008a, 54). In relation to all three levels of rule-making, it can generally be said that when most of the individuals who are affected by a resource unit are able to continually configure and modify their own rules, these rules are then more likely to better suit local environmental conditions and the affected individuals’ needs. Furthermore, such participation not only limits elites from creating policies that only benefit themselves, but it also empowers individuals to co-produce rules and public goods that are more likely to be considered fair, adhered to and fostered (E. Ostrom 2005a, 263).

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...In other words, an ecological vision of law does not reduce law to a professionalized, preexisting, objective framework 'out there,' seperate from the behavior it regulates and tries to determine. Instead, law is always a process of 'commoning,' a long-term collective action in which communities, sharing a common purpose and culture, institutionalize their collective will to maintain order and stability in the pursuit of social reproduction. Thus the commons - an open network of relationships - rather than the individual, is the building block of the ecology of law and what we call an ecological order"

What is Civics>

Civics aims to answer questions like: “How can we make democracy work like it should?” or “How can we enhance citizens’ abilities to act as equal co-creators of our shared world?” You are a citizen of a group (regardless of your legal status) if you seriously ask: “What should we do?” Civic activities include deliberation, community organizing, social entrepreneurship, protest, and–in a pinch!–electoral politics.

What is a Civic Game?

A civic game is any game that, in some way, aims to promote or enhance people’s ability to engage with the social and political world around them. Civics can be about working with and within formal structures of government, but it can also be about reforming or opposing injustice, or about being a member of a community in other ways.

Social innovation encompasses a range of practices and strategies that aim at the betterment of a society, often in respect to the less privileged. It is a loose concept that in the field of design research and practice helps to unpack how design and innovation, or perhaps design innovation, tackle social issues that force us to steer away from mere designs and business models not only to the end users but to larger societal concerns as well. Social innovation “usually implies a normative approach that something positive is created for the society” (Osburg 2013, 17).

Meanwhile, the concept serious games<.i>, which Clark. C. Abt coined in 1970, covers games that address changes in player behaviour or thinking instead of serving only to entertain. In the contemporary games industry and games research, serious games are defined very similarly as “games that do not have entertainment, enjoyment, or fun as their primary purpose” (Michael and Chen 2006, 21). They merge a goal of education, motivation, and/or behavioural change with the fun of gameplay (Rittefeld, Cody and Vorderer 2009). While several terms—such as applied games or games with a purpose—are used to refer to this body of games, this article adopts the term serious game given its current popularity both in the industry and academia.

From the perspective this paper adopts, social innovation allows us to examine how a specific society addresses social issues through design innovation or through what could then be called social design.