Toys are not idle knick-knacks: they allow us to explore otherwise impossible terrain; fire the imagination; provide sparks for structured play. They do not just entertain and delight; they stimulate and inspire. And always, they remind us of the value - and values - to be found in abstract play.
Tagged with “games”
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Making Friends: On Toys and Toymaking — dConstruct Audio Archive
Tagged with games code creativity process
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Fun Inc.: Why games are the 21st century’s most serious business
Why should we be taking video games more seriously?
In 2008 Nintendo overtook Google to become the world’s most profitable company per employee. The South Korean government will invest $200 billion into its video games industry over the next 4 years. The trading of virtual goods within games is a global industry worth over $10 billion a year. Gaming boasts the world’s fastest-growing advertising market.
In addition to these impressive statistics, video games are creating a whole new science of mass engagement which is beginning to revolutionise the way we research and understand economics, human behaviour and democratic participation. Games are used to train the US Military, to model global pandemics and to campaign against human rights abuses in Africa.
Journalist and author Tom Chatfield visits the RSA to examine the ways in which virtual game worlds can function as unprecedented laboratories for exploring human motivations, and for evaluating economic theories that it has never been possible before to test experimentally.
He will argue that games are becoming one of the most powerful tools available for raising awareness of political, ethical and environmental issues, and promoting action across an extraordinary range of fields and disciplines – from medicine to warfare to, perhaps most importantly, education.
Response by Ed Vaizey MP, Shadow Minister for Culture
Chaired by Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC technology correspondent
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RSA Design
Kevin Slavin, urban consultant and co-founder of New York computer games studio Area/Code presents a powerful argument for games as social systems with people at the centre; for the “software” of cities as what runs on the “hardware” of buildings and streets; for an “urban sport” that can educate behaviour by leaking from computers into the social world; and above all, for designers today to build the systems that will propagate and feed us, not the things we will consume.
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Loving Your Player With Juicy Feedback
The games we love also love us back — mostly, by reflecting our successes and failures in delicious ways. This talk will explore the concept of feedback in game design, using examples drawn from both personal & professional experience. We’ll examine a variety of feedback mechanisms (good and bad), and discuss how lessons drawn from these examples can be applied to any user experience.
http://2009.dconstruct.org/schedule/robinhunicke/
Robin is a Game Designer and Producer who specializes in new IP aimed at reaching new players. Her titles include MySims and Steven Spielberg’s BAFTA award-winning BOOM BLOX franchise — both made for Nintendo Wii. She recently joined thatgamecompany, whose recent Playstation Network releases Flow and Flower are celebrated for their beauty, whimsy and zen-like economy of action.
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Funologists Live & In Person: Guerilla Game Research
If you work at a game company, research means understanding play, not analyzing boring spreadsheets. Meet Big Fish Games and Pogo funologists and learn how listening and watching gamers transforms product and web design. We share different innovative guerilla (discount) and traditional research methods to inspire user-centered design.
Moderator: Laura Porto Stockwell, Publicis in the West
Julie Ratner, Big Fish Games
Erica Firment, Second Life
Tracy Fullerton, USC Interactive Media
Jason Schklar, Initial Experience Consulting
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Cinematic Game Secrets for Creative Directors and Producers
Cinematography for Games covers the space between the game and film industries by pointing out the most relevant cinematic techniques in today’s hottest games, and includes interviews with the game industry’s greatest luminaries (including Warren Spector: Creator of one of the original game companies, Origin, Richard Rouse III: Legendary game designer, and Noah Falstein of Game Developer magazine). The convergence of games and film is a widely discussed and debated topic in the game industry. Many major publishers, along with some high-profile directors (John Woo, James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Tony Scott) are exploring the middle ground between the industries. This book introduces game producers and directors to the techniques that film producers, directors and cinematographers have relied on for years.Game developers learn how to create compelling video games by developing quality stories and characters, visualizing scenes within the game through the eyes of a cinematographer, and using tried and true film industry methods for casting, voice-over, direction and production. The book will also feature screen shots from some of today’s hottest titles that illustrate key cinematic concepts, as well as advice from successful game industry professionals already using these techniques.
Rich Newman, Elsinore Productions