FishPoll – a serious game about sharing moving fish stocks under climate change

Abstract

Climate change is driving shifts in fish stock distributions, creating challenges for transboundary fisheries governance and quota allocation. Traditional negotiation processes often fail to achieve consensus among stakeholders, leading to geopolitical tensions and unsustainable resource use. To address this, we introduce FishPoll, an innovative serious game designed to simulate the complexities of quota negotiations under changing ecological conditions in a fictional scenario. FishPoll provides a structured, yet flexible, role-playing environment where participants take on the roles of coastal state representatives, negotiating catch allocations based on shifting stock distributions. The game incorporates a dynamic “sliding scale” mechanism that transitions quota allocation from historical rights to zonal attachment, offering a realistic and interactive framework for decision-making. Through structured gameplay and facilitated discussions, FishPoll simulates quota negotiations to illustrate the consequences of participants failing to reach consensus. Thereby, the game fosters collaborative problem-solving, policy exploration, and stakeholder engagement in fisheries management. Furthermore, it encourages discussions about allocation agreements. Playtesting with scientists and policymakers demonstrated that FishPoll enhances understanding of allocation challenges, stimulates constructive dialogue, and serves as a practical tool for research, education, and stakeholder training. Hence, FishPoll may contribute to the discourse on the tragedy of the commons while offering a valuable addition to previous intervention games. FishPoll represents a novel application of serious gaming in fisheries governance, bridging the gap between scientific modelling and real-world negotiation dynamics.