For Gen Z, politics often feels like a spectator sport—but gaming inverts that logic. In online worlds, millions of players organise, negotiate, compete, and build power every day—inside ecosystems shaped by global platforms, state interests, and cultural influence. What happens when these dynamics spill into real-world democracy?

Hendrik Lesser will explore how gaming and interactive media are reshaping civic participation—and how games themselves have become arenas of geopolitical contestation.

He will examine:

• How game mechanics such as quests, leaderboards, and world-building foster civic agency, coordination, and collective identity

• How gaming communities mobilise around political causes, digital rights, and cultural narratives—often across borders

• How states, platforms, and commercial actors increasingly view games as tools of soft power, influence, and behavioural shaping

What “playable democracy” could look like in an age of streaming cultures, avatars, algorithmic publics, and geopolitical competition

Participants will leave with concrete ideas on how campaigns, NGOs, and young creators can harness the logic of play—not only to engage and mobilise, but to prototype, test, and scale democratic experiences in contested digital spaces, turning participation into action and imagination into power.