A new direction for the studio

Today we’ve updat­ed our front page and about page to reflect a new direc­tion for the stu­dio: dig­i­tal prod­uct design for a play­ful world.

The way we see it, play­ful­ness has become an impor­tant qual­i­ty for a wide range of prod­ucts. It invites peo­ple into an expe­ri­ence, enables them to con­nect to oth­ers and express them­selves, and offers a way for them to under­stand the world.

The things we find our­selves work­ing on nowa­days aren’t nec­es­sar­i­ly “games” in the strict sense of the word. We have a very relaxed atti­tude about what games are and have always pushed the bound­aries of the form in both our applied and free work. But although the group of peo­ple who share our views has grown, the real­i­ty is that for many peo­ple still, a game is a very spe­cif­ic cat­e­go­ry of media prod­uct. And so when they are intro­duced to Hub­bub as a game design stu­dio, they aren’t always able to imag­ine how we might help them with invent­ing and build­ing oth­er types of prod­ucts that are play­ful and engaging.

So we’ve decid­ed to bid the label of games and game design farewell and instead frame our work in the more gen­er­al terms of prod­ucts and design while retain­ing the notion of play­ful­ness. In doing so, we hope to invite a wider range of clients and col­lab­o­ra­tors to work with us on new and excit­ing things.

Of course, this does not mean we are no longer inter­est­ed in games and game-like projects. We are proud of the body of work we have built up over the years. The games will stay in our port­fo­lio and in fact we are work­ing on a few new ones right now. We hope to con­tin­ue to do so, while at the same time expand­ing our range into more things sim­i­lar to Cup­pings, Stand­ing and so on. Things that aren’t recog­nis­able as games per se but that are in fact deeply play­ful in var­i­ous ways.

As we get set­tled on this new direc­tion, you can expect more changes in the com­ing peri­od. And of course we’d love to hear your thoughts. So as ever, do get in touch.