So I’ve returned from a short but wonderful trip to Hamburg (too short, really). Below you’ll find slides plus notes for the talk I gave at Raum Schiff Erde, a conference put together by a group of Reboot adepts. I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed the laid-back atmosphere, the curious venue and the nice talks. Many thanks to Sebastian, Matthias and the rest for the crew for inviting me, and for all their hard work.
The talk’s title refers to alchemists’ quest to turn lead into gold, which sometimes feels similar to what we’re trying to do with pervasive games in public urban places.1 To summarize: I start by talking about the fact that games are essentially useless, and that this means applied game design should look for useful results in second order effects. I argue that the contribution of urban games lies primarily in the increased diversity of use of our streets, which is a good thing in itself. I talk about the care designers need to take with the games they deploy, since not everyone is looking to play and we should respect that. Playing games is a voluntary thing by definition. Towards the end I go into different strategies for using games to increase systemic awareness using several games as examples. I wrap up with a look at reward systems we commonly find in games like Foursquare, which now serves as templates for a lot of work in this area. I feel that this leads people away from what game design is about in the first place: creating interesting activities.
Slides and notes for Transmutation at Raum Schiff Erde 2010
So I’ve returned from a short but wonderful trip to Hamburg (too short, really). Below you’ll find slides plus notes for the talk I gave at Raum Schiff Erde, a conference put together by a group of Reboot adepts. I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed the laid-back atmosphere, the curious venue and the nice talks. Many thanks to Sebastian, Matthias and the rest for the crew for inviting me, and for all their hard work.
The talk’s title refers to alchemists’ quest to turn lead into gold, which sometimes feels similar to what we’re trying to do with pervasive games in public urban places.1 To summarize: I start by talking about the fact that games are essentially useless, and that this means applied game design should look for useful results in second order effects. I argue that the contribution of urban games lies primarily in the increased diversity of use of our streets, which is a good thing in itself. I talk about the care designers need to take with the games they deploy, since not everyone is looking to play and we should respect that. Playing games is a voluntary thing by definition. Towards the end I go into different strategies for using games to increase systemic awareness using several games as examples. I wrap up with a look at reward systems we commonly find in games like Foursquare, which now serves as templates for a lot of work in this area. I feel that this leads people away from what game design is about in the first place: creating interesting activities.
View a video of this talk at Hamburg University’s Podcampus, and view the slides and notes for this talk at SlideShare.
Update: below is a video of this talk on Vimeo.
Some recommended sources that served as input for this talk: