Fort McMoney launches for second round

Round two of Fort McMoney, an interactive documentary game developed by TOXA and the National Film Board of Canada, launched on Jan. 27. The game allows participants to take control of Fort McMurray and decide the virtual fate of the world’s largest energy project. The second round of the game features new missions and exclusive, previously unseen content. Feedback from players who participated in the first round has also been incorporated into the game. As the game unfolds, players make decisions related to the economy, politics, the environment and social issues. At the end of each week, a referendum influences future directions. In the first round, between Nov.25-Dec.22, 2013, 309,000 unique visitors populated Fort McMoney, more than triple Fort McMurray’s actual population. The results of polls and referendums in the documentary game caused the number of barrels of oil produced to drop dramatically and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 58 per cent. That drop came with a price: the work camps emptied out, with the number of people living there reduced from 40,000 to under 4,000. Average annual household income fell from $192,707 to $9,287, while the unemployment rate climbed to 28 per cent.