Pipe Trouble

… players must lay natural gas pipelines in order to make money and transport natural gas from the beginning of the end of the level. As the player lays pipes across a gridded map, they run the risk of facing opposition from the government and the community depending on where pipe is laid (Source: Games for Change, 2013, np link).

… you’re … trying to balance the financial demands of using the least pipe to make the most money against the impact on the local environment and neighbouring farms (Source: Anon 2013a, np link).

The challenge is to make a pipeline that is both profitable, but also environmentally-friendly (Source: McMillan 2013, np link).

The core gameplay is, more or less, as you might expect: the play area is a grid, and you lay sections of pipe on the landscape, one by one, to complete the pipeline. What’s fascinating, however, is how each stage, from the third one onwards, consists of a landscape which presents its own unique set of ethical dilemmas to navigate. A lake stands in the way of the pipeline, and you can either take the short route (finish ahead of schedule and under budget, but aggravate the locals by uprooting a small forest) or the long route (respect the environment, but enrage the energy conglomerate by losing money on a meandering pipeline.) In certain cases, it will be impossible to satisfy both parties (Source: Gone Gonzo 2013, np link).

You have two men on either of your screen. I would be tempted to call them ‘the angel’ and ‘the devil’ on either of your shoulders, save that both of them aren’t necessarily ‘good’ or ‘evil’ (Source: Kirshenblatt 2013, np link).

The man on your left is a farmer that is watching your progress in placing down pipes with oncoming gas with great interest and caution (Source: Kirshenblatt 2013, np link).

Lay your pipe too close to the pastures and risk springing a leak that kills livestock and makes people sick. Build through forest or near water and you will incite protesters that block your path. Suffer a leak or raise local indignation too far and risk potential pipe sabotage that could end your operation (Source: Anon 2013a, np link).

If you destroy the land too much, there will be protesters that will block your pipe route. How long they stay in front of your progress will all depend on just how much damage they perceived you to have done. This farmer will keep watching you and will warn you only once not to mess with his land (Source: Kirshenblatt 2013, np link).

Then you have the man on your right: your boss. He is the one informing you of when the gas will start flowing (right when you place a pipe down to get from Point A to Point B) and he will keep track of the money you are making … and losing with delays (Source: Kirshenblatt 2013, np link).

… every piece of pipe costs money and every second counts (Source: Anon 2013a, np link).

That’s right. If you do not place your pipes fast enough, not only will you risk a gas leak poisoning a lake, killing animals, and other horrors but you will lose your company money and your boss will sure as hell hold you responsible and, if we are going for realism, probably put it all on your head when the bad press comes out (Source: Kirshenblatt 2013, np link).

Each level begins with a predetermined start and end point, between which lie a variety of crop fields, forests, and open stretches of land. Pipe tiles are generated randomly and the player always has four different tiles to choose from when deciding what type of pipe to place. Placing pipe over forests or crop fields upsets the community, and if too much damage is done to the local environment, then protestors, vandals, government officials (bringing fines and injunctions), and even pipeline bombers will step in to oppose the player, making it more difficult to lay pipe or even destroying the pipeline. … After the first piece of pipe is put down, natural gas begins to flow towards the open starting point, making it crucial to complete the pipe before a spill causes an environmental disaster (Source: Games for Change, 2013, np link).

The player is given the task of constructing a gas pipeline in an efficient enough way that you don’t f*** up too many trees, anger the farmer whose property you’re building on, or develop it so slowly that the gas company loses money. Besides balancing out all of these requirements, along the way you face obstacles—one of which is a group of ecoterrorists who try to bomb the pipeline (Source: McGuire, 2013, np link).

Build too slowly, and a rush of gas will destroy farmland. If you build atop trees, expect to hear from environmental protesters. Use too much piping – and, by extension, too much money – and expect to hear from upset oil-industry developers. Then, if you build too mindlessly, expect graffiti or, at worst, a pipeline bombing (which, uh, isn’t exactly fiction) (Source: Teo 2013, np link).

As you start playing, between levels, you get these radio segments that anchor back into the real world and then people are realizing, wow, this is actually going on, these pipeline issues are happening right here in Canada (Source: Jansen in McGuire 2013, np link).

This narrative will immensely affect how you approach the game, as you’ll quickly be met with tough decisions that demand compromise (Source: Gone Gonzo 2013, np link).

It’s a caricature, but as a player, you begin to see how complex it is to navigate both sides. It’s a start point, not an end point for these issues—it drives [players] to realize what’s happening in these remote regions. It doesn’t tell people what to think, but it tells people to think. And these issues are pertinent to all Canadians (Source: Teo 2013, np link).

In Western Canada, pipelines, such as the highly controversial Keystone XL, have been a hot topic for quite some time. Pipe Trouble was developed and published as yet another voice in the debate (Source: Gone Gonzo 2013, np link).

Pipe Trouble is a Pop Sandbox Production, produced in collaboration with Six Island Productions and TVO with the support of the Ontario Media Development Corporation and the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund. It was developed with the support of docSHIFT (an initiative of the Documentary Organization of Canada’s Toronto chapter) (Source: Anon 2013a, np link).

Pipe Trouble is a game developed by Alex Jansen and Pop Sandbox, in partnership with Jim Munroe. It was funded in part by the government of Ontario, and was to be featured on TV Ontario’s website, alongside a documentary on Canadian oil pipelines (Source: Hancock 2013, np link).

TVO said it’s not afraid to take on projects that enable people to better understand the world they live in, even though that may involve talking about controversial subjects (Source: Babbage 2013, np link).

Video games remain a relatively new medium for exploring topical news stories, and the creators are adamant that much of the controversy would be dispelled through actual play (Source: Hamilton 2013, np link).

… we [at Pop Sandbox] were approached about doing an interactive extension that would engage a different-than-traditional 90-minute doc audience. That’s why we looked at exploring video games. We took the mechanic of the classic games Pipe Dream and Pipe Mania, where you had these random pieces of pipe connecting from a start point to end point. It’s a familiar and easy-to-grasp mechanic, but [with Pipe Trouble], you’re building on top of farmlands, forests, and rural communities in increasingly over-the-top, cartoonish situations. In the process, you’re able to layer in real-world issues (Source: Teo 2013, np link).

… the medium is extremely useful in reaching out to segments of the population who wouldn’t normally put much thought into energy policy in Canada (Source: Bernard 2013, np link).

The whole idea is to use over-the-top satire to start drawing awareness and engaging a new audience in the energy debate (Source: Kaszor 2013, np link).

[It] is so accessible you don’t even need to be a gamer, per se. It’s so simplistically designed (Source: McGuire 2013, np link).

[It] makes the player-audience interact immediately and directly with the issue as clearly, and as simply put, as possible (Source: Kirshenblatt 2013, np link).

[It] aims to take the complex issues surrounding oil pipelines and tries to encourage gamers to think critically about energy extraction (Source: Kaszor 2013, np link).

… the game … was meant to engage people on both sides of the pipeline debate and it’s not taking sides (Source: Babbage 2013, np link).

[It]explores timely issues in an entirely novel way without immediately vilifying industry, all designed to prompt larger mainstream discussion (Source: Anon nd, np link).

The game isn’t taking an especially pro or anti-pipeline stance. It’s mostly just trying to get gamers to think about the issues involved (Source: Kaszor 2013, np link).

It’s about asking questions – not providing answers – about how the energy industry balances environmental and financial concerns. It’s about creating a conversation about sometimes-stuffy Canadian current affairs – and having fun in the process (Source: Teo 2013, np link).

It’s an interactive look at the complicated issues surrounding pipeline development – and that’s the kind of experience only a video game could provide. The socio-political conflict that surrounds pipeline development in Canada is obviously a real and highly contentious issue, and Pipe Trouble lets you explore that in a very cool way (Source: McGuire 2013, np link).

TVO had provided a link to a website where players could try out the game for free. It could also be bought for $1.99, with a portion of the proceeds going to the David Suzuki Foundation [a non-profit working towards a sustainable Canada] (Source: Babbage 2013, np link).

$10,000 was put towards the game’s development through TV Ontario, Canada’s public educational media organization (Source: Podolsky 2013, np link).

[It] was partly funded by the Ontario Media Development Corporation, which uses taxpayer dollars to fund art and popular media projects (Source: Podolsky 2013, np link).

What you have, then, is a game made by an organization that has some of its funding provided by the government making a politically charged argument, and subsequently under potential risk of being gravely, perhaps even deliberately, misinterpreted by the mass media (Source: Hancock, 2013, np link).

What you have, then, is a game made by an organization that has some of its funding provided by the government making a politically charged argument, and subsequently under potential risk of being gravely, perhaps even deliberately, misinterpreted by the mass media (Source: Hancock, 2013, np link).

Pipe Trouble was a digital complement to this documentary (Source: Kirshenblatt 2013, np link).

Trouble in the Peace … [is] where a lot of the stuff in the game comes from. People asked: ‘Why are you including the bombings?’ Well that’s central to the film and central to the story the film explores. It looks at a fifth generation farmer in the Peace River Region who is struggling with farming as a way of life. He’s subsidized by big oil and gas, he has a well on his property, so he’s in this tough position because around the same time his daughter was born there was a massive leak. And then he had a two-headed calf that was born on his property. He’s convinced that the leak and the cow are related, and so it starts to raise these larger concerns around safety and also around the environment and watching the community change. Then the documentary hones in on him and his response to everything. It starts to look at the community as a whole and some of their concerns, but the entire backdrop to the film is this series of bombings [that happened in B.C.]. So all the things we chose to represent in the video game are all real world issues (Source: Jansen in McGuire 2013, np link).

Even though Pipe Trouble was designed to accompany a TV Ontario documentary, the themes closely resemble the 2008 and 2009 pipeline bombings in British Columbia (Source: McMillan, 2013, np link).

The broadcaster [TVO] has denied suggestions that the game draws a link to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would ship oilsands crude from Alberta across the U.S. Midwest to refineries on in Texas … But neither the game nor the documentary mentions Keystone XL, TVO said (Source: Babbage 2013, np link).

… along the way you face obstacles – one of which is a group of ecoterrorists who try to bomb the pipeline. That little detail alone quickly turned into a total f*****g s***storm of right-wing media and political outrage (Source: McGuire, 2013, np link).

… the game to be a well-crafted and humorous take on a major issue of our times (Source: Podolsky 2013, np link).

It gives people something physical to anchor the game to (Source: Teo 2013, np link).

I like games with consequences (Source: Kirshenblatt 2013, np link).

I adore Pipe Trouble. It’s not just because it’s a brilliant game (which it is), nor because it speaks to my ethical/ideological stances (which is neither here nor there), but rather because it’s a truly important and significant game. Rather than wrapping its dynamics in commentary as an ironic coat of paint or critic-proof facade (see: Far Cry 3), the two elements support one another to such an extent that the commentary becomes essential to its dynamics and the dynamics amplify the effects of the commentary. Depending on which of the two you remove, you’re left with either a dreary Pipe Mania-esque puzzler or an ineffective grade school level debate. But combined, it becomes a highly successful and thought-provoking dynamic experiment, deftly demonstrating the persuasive powers of videogames (Source: Gone Gonzo 2013, np link).

It is very clever. It is very easy to vilify a company or a corporation as a soulless entity that only caters to the very rich, squashes agriculture and ‘the lower classes,’ and pollutes the environment without any understanding of what it might be doing or-worse-even care. It is just as easy to lionize a pipe bomber as a freedom fighter against a tyrannical force even as it is to denigrate them as a terrorist that likes to destroy human lives and a Western way of life: whatever that is (Source: Kirshenblatt 2013, np link).

… if it was to get people thinking about the wider issues around pipeline construction, the framing is exactly right. Your god-like perspective means that you can see things the protesters can’t, like the hard decisions you’ve made about which habitats to destroy in order to preserve others, and your overlord looking at his budget going way over, and waving his fists in the air. I ended up thinking about how much I like having gas central heating and wondering about the environmental costs of it. Importantly, it’s not just about issues, it’s also fun, which is what makes it worth thinking and writing about (Source: Sampson 2013, np link).

Pipe Trouble ran into its own trouble when it was branded as subversive, as it was perceived as suggesting that pipe bombs and oil business were concepts that could be addressed through play (Source: Hancock 2013, np link).

According to some critics, the gameplay of Pipe Trouble is too politically charged, violent, and unethical (Source: McMillan 2013, np link).

… after the public saw a 40-second trailer for Pipe Trouble, in which protesters appeared to be blowing up a pipeline, discussion quickly turned from the game’s objective of balancing competing interests to whether it promoted extremism (Source: Ore 2013, np link).

The whole thing escalated when Pipe Trouble was brought up to the Ontario Premier [Kathleen Wynne] at a media scrum. It was positioned – unfairly  – as this publicly funded eco-terrorism game about bombing pipelines. And the next thing you know, you had these articles in the Toronto Sun saying, ‘Pipeline propaganda! You, too, can play eco-terrorist!’ (Source: Teo 2013, np link).

In the weeks following its release, Pipe Trouble was called many things: Right-wing media called it a tribute to eco-terrorism. Alberta premier Alison Redford called it a ‘disappointing’ use of Ontario public funding (Source: Teo 2013, np link).

‘It’s disappointing to see a taxpayer-funded game and organization depict the blowing up of pipelines,’ says Alison Redford, the premier of Alberta (Source: Gone Gonzo 2013, np link).

Sun TV pundit Ezra Levant turned it into a regional debate, saying it was ‘as if the Alberta or British Columbia government paid for a game called Windmill Bomber – hey, go bomb those windmills in Ontario.’ Yeesh (Source: Teo 2013, np link).

Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives had a different take on the game, saying it depicts a pipeline being built by ‘ruthless executives on one side, which is then bombed by eco-terrorists on the other.’ They say the game is a ‘national embarrassment’ for Ontario and a ‘flagrant misuse’ of taxpayers’ money (Source: Babbage 2013, np link).

‘What started as a flagrant misuse of taxpayer money by promoting eco-terrorism through a tax-funded broadcaster has now become yet another complete embarrassment for the province of Ontario,’ [Tory MPP Monte] McNaughton told [Ontario Premier Kathleen] Wynne. ‘With the premiers of Alberta and B.C. criticizing your Pipe Trouble as disappointing, offensive and contrary to Canada’s interests, we’ve also heard from Canada’s federal minister of heritage calling it tasteless.’ (Source: Artuso 2013, np link).

Mayors in northeastern B.C. are demanding an apology from the developers … The topic hits close to home in Northeastern B.C., where six bombings targeting a natural gas pipeline and gas wells operated by the Encana Corporation rocked the area in 2008 and 2009 … Dawson Creek Mayor Mike Bernier says memories of the bombings are still fresh…’Anyone who wants to capitalize or sensationalize on something that was such a terrible time for us is obviously something we can’t support at all’ (Source: Anon 2013b, np link).

Fort St. John Mayor Lori Ackerman also condemns the game, saying it misrepresents her region. ‘Our residents don’t need to be portrayed in the way that they are portraying us, and we certainly don’t need any kind of insinuation at all that the way to achieve some kind of resolution is by bombing a pipeline,’ she said (Source: Anon 2013d, np link).

… misinformation moved through government and the media, which could’ve been dispelled through playing the game. It got to the point that people started to form incredibly strong opinions (Source: Teo 2013, np link).

The big thing was how completely it misrepresented the game we’ve made. That’s what completely shocked me, it just seemed like complete misinformation that I thought would be very quickly corrected – but then what’s frightening was how the same information was propelled further, to the point of people getting incredibly strong opinions without ever actually having played the game (Source: Jansen in McGuire 2013, np link).

An article would be posted online at like 11:00AM with all this misinformation and then it would be edited at 7:00PM to include modifications. But no one is coming forward and addressing the modifications, so the complete misinformation that led to people having incredibly strong opinions is now very hard to have people back down off of (Source: McGuire 2013, np link).

‘And I would hope that everyone involved in this would, sort of, step back and say, ‘Wait a minute here, what is the real issue we’re trying to look and how could we have a better dialogue?’ so we don’t end up in these types of controversies each time they happen,’ [David Suzuki Foundation CEO Peter] Robinson said (Source: Anon 2013c, np link).

How dare they make a game that simulates what it is like to build a pipeline what an outrage *sarcasm*. I think its a clever idea i don’t see anything wrong with it and kudos to the developers for making a game that deals with current events (Source: Edwin, 2013, np link).

Anyone who has actually played Pipe Trouble would know that it’s not a pipeline bombing simulator (Source: McGuire 2013, np link).

Maybe someone in the government could actually sit down and play the game (Source: Kaszor 2013, np link)?

… people don’t understand how video games work, nor do certain other people like it when you comment on the Canadian energy industry (Source: McGuire 2013, np link).

The ‘controversy’ was silly. The real controversy is how politicians and members of the public service were not called out on their lack of due diligence and how they jumped to conclusions about both the game itself and how the industry and funding works. People should have lost their jobs for inventing drama surrounding this nice little project (Source: Young 2013, np link).

When the media storm hit, we got blindsided with completely inaccurate information about what the actual game is. Now a lot of the talk has been trying to clarify complete misinformation. It’s been brutal (Source: Jansen in McGuire 2013, np link).

… the game [was] to be taken down until reviewed by an independent source (Source: Games for Change 2013, np link).

Following independent review, a panel threw out the claims and issued a statement on the matter which read, ‘Pipe Trouble does not support, glamorize or advocate violence in any way … Pipe Trouble is not a game about blowing up pipelines. It is a game about building pipelines … the title has now been cleared for release on iOS and Android devices (Source: Cook 2013, np link).

Pipe Trouble passed this review, and went on to be the first game featured at the Cannes Film Festival (Source: Games for Change, 2013, np link).

An explosive video game that angered B.C. mayors has made waves on the international film circuit. ‘Pipe Trouble’ became the first video game ever featured at the Cannes Film Festival in May, as part of its ‘Marche du Film’ program that showcases new media, according to a June news release. The festival website described ‘Pipe Trouble’ as ‘a new breed of ethical video game,’ claiming that it ‘generated a huge amount of media attention when the Oil & Gas Industry influenced conservative media into running a negative smear campaign labelled an ‘eco-terrorist, anti-pipeline’ game’ (Source: Anon 2013d, np link).

Pipe Trouble isn’t in trouble anymore (Source: Bernard 2013, np link).

… you can still buy Pipe Trouble for tablets and/or try it out for free on the Pipe Trouble website (Source: McGuire 2013, np link).

It’s really been working with that 18-35 audience (Source: Teo 2013, np link).

… we’re really engaging this audience that historically has the single worst voter turnout and [doesn’t engage with] public policy (Source: Teo 2013, np link).