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Superthreats: Quarantine, Ravenous, and Power Struggle
Quarantine Superthreat"In 2019, Respiratory Distress Syndrome, or ReDS, is here, and it's not going anywhere." Outbreaks of ReDS have become commonplace, initially in tropical and sub-tropical regions, then spreading to other cities such as Stockholm where over 15,000 citizens are living with ReDS and its chronic, severe symptoms. Relief organizations struggle to handle the situation as it is presently, yet ReDS is spreading to other regions of the world while remaining incurable. Superstruct Challenge: What can we do in our own communities to provide ReDS relief and support?
Superstruct: The world's first massively multiplayer forecasting game
Forget what you typically expect from your average client-based MMO. In fact, the title you're going to read about here differs markedly from the type of game we normally cover at Massively, but that makes it no less interesting. Superstruct is truly something different -- a futuristic alternate reality game that launches today (October 6) and lasts only 6 weeks, developed by a team at The Institute for the Future (IFTF) -- a not-for-profit think tank based in Palo Alto, California. For lack of a better, and less inflammatory, description, Superstruct is a thinking person's MMO, and is in many respects a social experiment; the game is an attempt to harness the collective intelligence and problem-solving abilities of its playerbase to make forecasts about the world's future and its escalating problems. In fact, Superstruct bills itself as the world's first massively multiplayer forecasting game, with the tagline: Play the game. Invent the future. Despite being set in 2019 and looking forward to world issues that will become crises 20 years beyond that, Superstruct's genre is more futurist than sci-fi. Superstruct doesn't feature the traditional game elements we've come to expect from a massively multiplayer title. Instead, it fosters new ways for players to work together, testing out their ideas and strategies in a creative, collaborative brainstorming experiment that spans different mediums. Plausible future scenarios will be posited to the player base, challenging them to really think and produce compelling responses to the events in the game.
Superthreats: Outlaw Planet and Generation Exile
Outlaw Planet Superthreat"In 2019, the mobile internet and sensor networks we rely on to hold our societies together are being hacked, griefed, and gamed."The effects of technology turned against us impacts the democratic process, social networks, and every institution connected to the internet. Sophisticated criminal groups employ 'transparency bombs' in online banking attacks (and "World of Starcraft" players no less). The target financial institutions are major players in the virtual currency market, but the issues resulting from this undermined security affect private citizens as well as the banks.Superstruct Challenge: How can we come together to secure our assets, both real and virtual?
