Thanks for the shout-out! I clearly don’t keep up with blogging as much as I’d like but some very belated thoughts in response to this. I had first thought about using game mechanics to augment civic engagement in the wake of the Obama campaign, which had used points to signal to (“reward” is too strong a term) volunteers how engaged they were relative to their peers.
I then started working on creating a game that would support a campaign for fair trade that my wife was working on. I never got the development resources to pull that together, but while I was doing this, I was also experimenting with using virtual spaces to support public design through Hub2, a project that continues today under co-founder Eric Gordon at Emerson College, who is now directs the Engagement Game Lab, which you totally should check out.
Another game you might want to investigate is A Force More Powerful and its sequel, People Power. Both are hardcore strategy titles in that they are realistic, punishingly difficult, and — unfortunately — don’t sport the friendliest GUI. Of course, it turns out that overthrowing violent repressive dictators is not easy, so why should a realistic strategy game be any different? While not by any means an ARG, these games were intended by their creators to teach real-world organizers the strategic thinking needed to develop effective campaigns. Definitely worth checking out!