Ever since writing it, I've been particularly interested in creating work systems that incorporate elements of games.
Because as the principle behind 'spoonful of sugar' would have it, if you add an element of fun to a job, the job becomes a game. And we'd all like it a lot more if our jobs were a bit more like games, yeah?
So I was very excited to find out about this forthcoming book...
Total Engagement Using Games and Virtual Worlds to change the Way People Work and Businesses Compete
Of course, I can't tell you owt about it, as I've only just ordered it from Amazon. But the blurb certainly sells it to me...
"Implementing components of multiplayer computer games in the workplace
will address a host of age-old problems. Games can not only stem
boredom and decrease turnover, but also enhance collaboration and
encourage creative leadership. Games require extraordinary teamwork,
elaborate data analysis and strategy, recruitment and retention of top
players, and quick decision making.
Recreating some elements of games -
such as positioning tasks within stories, creating internal economies,
and implementing participant-driven communication systems - can not
only boost employee engagement but overall productivity."
Sounds really interesting, doesn't it? I'm very much looking forward to reading it
(thanks to the tip off from the guys at Natron Baxter, an Applied Gaming outfit over there in that there USofA...)
Anyhoo, I think that it appeals so much because, as kids, my brother and I were big fans of 'God Games' like Civilisation, Populous et al, and like most blokes my age I've lost days to Championship Manager.
If you're not familiar with the principles of such games, they are based upon an absolute mountain of data... with tens, hundreds or thousands of different characters, units and the like all needing your care and attention on a turn by turn basis.
You've got a set objective at the end, of course, but the only way to win the game is to set that big objective aside, and deal with the game on a turn-by-turn basis.
So whilst your overall big strategy is there, it's actually much more important to continually pay attention to the thousands of smaller tactical decisions.
The big strategy is as simple as 'win the space race' or 'defeat the other competitors'. The methods you use to do that constantly change and evolve depending on the circumstances...
Is it possible to do it for companies? Well, I believe so already... let's see what interesting examples and ideas the book brings when it arrives next week.
I've been off, as you may know. I've returned to 413 emails, and many more items to read in my RSS reader...
Did you know, by the way, that when you accumulate more than one thousand items in your Google reader it gives up telling you exactly how many things you've got to read, and just says '1000?+'...
...it might as well say 'more items than you'll ever get through, idiot.' Just because of that, I'm going to read every single one.
But until I get through all of those, I thought I'd just make a note of the things that are the first things I've got a sense of that went on...
i) Google W.A.V.E. = WhatAVexingExercise
There was obviously a huge hoopla around Google Wave's release, and it seems that some folks out there would have (and maybe did) put their grannies on eBay for an invite...
...and on that, I'd like to thank Graham and Simon for both getting me one...
Now, I've not honestly had the chance to use it 'in anger' yet, as it were. So I'm really only going on what a wide variety of other people have been saying...
By and large, the sense that I get is one of frustration, bemusement, annoyance... people are having a bit of a hard time coming to terms with what it is, what it can do, why it's different etc. Why? Maybe two things contributed...
i) Lack of Patience - it was never going to be something that worked for everyone immediately, but maybe folk are just too used to finding 'the next big thing' online that you just 'get' in about 5 minutes.
ii) Crap Launch Strategy - dropping it in the laps of lots of people all at once isn't helpful... instead of giving people invites to the equivalent of the first telephone (hello? anyone there? HELLO..?), maybe it should have been an invite to a few folk join a wave that existed already...
However, everyone's still talking about it, so maybe that was the goal... I'm going to try out some specific projects on it, and see how using it properly pans out.
If you're still unsure what it is, This video I found via Fiona will give you a simple overview...
ii) Foursquare comes to London
I've been quite excited about Foursquare for a while. In their own words, Foursquare is "all about helping you find new ways to explore the city. We'll help you meet up with your friends and let you earn points and unlock badges for discovering new places, doing new things and meeting new people."
Basically, when you go to a bar/restaurant/coffee shop etc, you 'check in' using Foursquare. You get points for checking in, and you can achieve different badges for checking in for all sorts of different reasons... see the list here.
You can compete with your friends to earn points, get rare and better badges and so on. So, on the face of it, it's a fun local game you play with your friends...
All well and good, a simple GPS enabled game. But where I think it gets interesting is that once they know where players are, what badges they earn, the points they collect and so on, they can serve them up special rewards and offers...
It's this sort of thing that I think means Foursquare could have a big, big future... advertisers have spent years trying to think of different ways to encourage people to visit their shops, restaurants, venues. This offers a way not only to find out how many people visit, but to create ways that encourage them to do so more often, and reward them for being the most frequent visitors too. It certainly gives us an insight into how GPS might be used in future.
iii) IPA Social was... very social indeed
After spending six months working on the project, it was a bit of a shame to miss the event, but the IPA Social event on the 6th October went off very well indeed it seems... some quotes from a few things people posted afterwards...
"Every strategist and brand owner needs to understand social, and what
role it should play in building their brand. A social strategy should
be an integral part of a brand and comms strategy, and should sit
across every discipline within an organisation – it can’t just be the
responsibility of the social media manager. That’s not to say there
isn’t a role for social specialists. Implementing a social strategy
requires a robust understanding of how to behave in the social space,
and experience in these craft skills counts for a lot. Specialist
practitioners implement media planning and buying, advertising
creation, packaging design, PR, POS, call centre operations, and pretty
much every aspect of implementing a brand strategy you can think of.
Social’s no different – specialist implementation is both valuable and
necessary."
"It seems that the term
social media itself is counter productive - a fundamental change in how
people are able to communicate with each other will naturally have
knock-on effects to all businesses that deal with communications. But
it will affect each differently. So 'social media' means something
different to an ad agency than to a PR agency because it impacts what
they have traditionally done in different ways. So the advice that
clients get from their roster is that 'social media' means a range of
different things."
"In the future, I'd predict only seeing agencies getting involved in
campaign activity, with the ongoing rumble of conversation being
handled purely client-side. All it requires is an understanding of how
to use the various platforms appropriately; no specialist skills are
required to participate to the full. In the beginning, agencies will be
needed to help out educating their clients on how to use the platforms
with case studies and such, but that should be the extent of it."
So, what next for IPA Social? Well, if you want to find out, and get ivolved, maybe you should join in the conversation here on the IPA Social facebook group...
Meanwhile, I'll get on with reading 1000+ articles... or maybe I'll just hit 'mark all as read'... :)
And I spent last night in Brighton at Hide & Seek's Sandpit event where we played it for the first time...
...so, how did it go?
Well, Hatchet was pretty chaotic, but a lot of fun...
A quick reminder of how the game works; there's a box of moo cards. Each of the cards has one word on it. Each of those words is a line from a Beatles song. There are several such lyrics in the game. The aim of the game is to find the rest of your line, and sing the lyric with your new friends. First three teams to sing get points. Repeat ad infinitum.
Yes, pretty well. I hadn't quite realised just how loud and boisterous the game would be... There were about 65 people playing, and 75 cards in play... which meant that there were some unformable lyrics. So you need to have a check about how many people are playing first.
But by and large, a raucous fun time was had by all...
If you ever have the chance to go to a Hide & Seek event, like one of their Sandpits, I would hugely recommend it too... there were lots of brilliant games throughout the evening, my favourite of which I think was Werewolf... or maybe Night of the Vampire... or Standoff...
...anyway, check out Ludocity for an extensive list of other games you can play.
And to Holly and the gang at Hide & Seek... thanks for letting me play :)
The other week, I went and talk to Holly at Hide & Seek, just to find out what sort of things they did.
She told me, I liked it, I wanted to join in. She said they were taking their Sandpit night on tour around the country... including to Brighton, where they were looking for someone local to design a game to be played there.
She persuaded me that there was only one man who could design a game in Brighton...
And that man was busy.
Which means I've had to do it instead.
Anyway, this is my game...
Hatchet
"You'll be my Charlie, and I could be your George Let's bury the hatchet like the Beatles and the Stones"
Each contestant receives a card with a word on it. That word will be part of
the line of a song. The aim is to find the rest of your lyric (minimum of five
words), and sing it aloud. Each member of that team gets a point.
The first
three completed lyrics get points. The cards are then returned, shuffled, and handed out again. The winner at
the end of all the rounds is the person (or people) with the most points.
The songs
The songs in Hatchet are mostly Beatles songs... though there's one
rogue song that we'll get onto later.
The lyrics taken from each vary in
length. For instance, there's a five word lyric from Strawberry Fields Forever, a six word lyric from Twist and Shout, and so on.
As long as you make up a chain of AT LEAST five words, you can sing your
song... you don't need the complete lyric.
The bonus song
There is a bonus song in the mix, which is a nine word lyric from the Rolling Stones song. If anyone manages to get that lyric, they get triple points (it's like
a golden snitch... it's only in there once, it's very hard to get before the
easier Beatles songs are sung, so worth more)
Playing
Given it's never been played yet, I can only imagine how it
will go... something like this maybe...
At the start, everyone gets their cards, and doesn't know what the
Beatles songs are. They have to remember, or use a phone to find out from the
internet... anything they like. So round one will take a while. If people get
too stuck, they'll get some clues.
But in round two, everyone will more more aware of what lyrics are out
there... and will start discovering more, so the game will get faster.
Some people may even make up lyrics from the words that I haven't been aware
are in the game. In that case, as long as it can be officially verified as a
Beatles lyric, it's allowed.
There's a brilliant article in the Guardian this morning by Charles Arthur on what might really be killing the music industry... gaming.
Basically, people only have so much money in their pockets... and as far as home entertainment goes, there's a new game in town, if you'll pardon the pun.
Has the music industry been concentrating on '£50 quid bloke' (yes, it's been years since anyone used that term), whilst the kids have a brand new bag?
When the Wii first came out, Nintendo took gaming into a whole new place; if you didn't like learning to use fiddly little controllers (and remembering to press >>XO>< or something) to control games, then there was a brilliant intuitive alternative in the Wii remote.
Even the Redknapps could use it:
(I'd like to believe there's a whole generation of technologists and designers who know sit for hours refining their inventions so that they pass 'the Redknapp test'...)
Anyway, it was only a matter of time before Sony & Microsoft got in on the act, and in the last two days we've seen big announcements from both.
First up, Sony are giving us the PlayStation Motion Controller (via ENGADGET). It consists of two parts; a little wand like device featuring some buttons and a glowing globe at the top, and a camera that you perch atop your TV to watch you waving it around.
Watch this video of the presentation to see it in action, and to learn a lot more about it:
It looks pretty darn cool, taking a lot of the technology we've seen in the infancy of augmented reality and moving it up another good few levels.
Yet it remains a controller, and it still has buttons on it... because, say Sony, buttons are still something we'll need when playing games.
Buttons are something that Microsoft are proposing we don't need in the future.
If this works like it looks like it works, it's going to be an absolute revolution in not only how we play games, but for everything where we want to interact with a screen.
Yeah, I know, that looks like another Microsoft high production piece with actors... so here's a live demo from the announcement:
What's more, it's something that will work with every XBox 360 that's out in the world already.
Both devices will be available in 2010 it seems... which isn't a long time away at all.
You've got to think that the XBox system is the game changer here; it revolutionises gaming, and the base system is already installed in more homes - this report from the Guardian suggests worldwide sales of 30 million for the XBox 360, versus 22 million for PS3. Both are trailing the 50 million selling Wii).
But if there's one thing that's for certain it's this; given the amount of jumping, running, kicking and punching we'll be doing in the future, we're all going to need bigger living rooms and unbreakable vases...
Last night in defiance of the credit crunch, not only did I buy a new summer residence, a sofa and some ornaments for my new house, I also put it all on a credit card. It was not too extravagant though – it cost me £5.
Oddly though, I don’t actually own anything. What kind of weird reality is this?
Well, this is the new Playstation Home Beta... (forums will help shape it ) – now open to anyone with a PS3, broadband connection and some time on their hands. Like Second Life or the Sims (but actually well rendered), you will find people from all round the world wandering about the mall, bowling alley, cinema and “home square”.
It’s a place to meet other game users and chat, there are games dotted around to amuse yourself with your new chums (chess, bowling and pool), or you can dance, sit or just watch. Of course, it’s hard to converse with everyone, there’s Spanish, English, French and even some Welsh in the chat you can see – a real UN of inhabitants at the moment.
The chat is stimulating...
The “posters” run video and expand as you approach to fill the screen, you will be able to buy branded goods from the “shops” to clothe your virtual self… As a virtual world the possibilities for engaging content and advertising become endless, tapping into the TV set, broadband and Blue Ray player we are seeing the start of something groundbreaking.
Of course, Microsoft are not so sure, calling the service outdated. Odd after 2 days....
This post has been a while in the making... it was about a year ago this Friday that a small gang of us travelled to Newcastle to pitch to Sage, who were looking for a way to engage with people in a powerful way... 'think big', they said, so we did...
...and suggested they bring back The Krypton Factor, in order to test the business intelligence of the nation. Lo and behold, a year later, and it's BACK! How very, very exciting...
The first show goes out in the New Year, I'll post up anything I can get my hands of the look and feel...
...but as a quick taster, head on over here to play the first of one of the many games that will accompany the series... it's really good, I've been, well, 'roadtesting' it this morning (it's bloody hard as well... but then it is 'TV's Toughest Quiz').
I’ve been really looking forward to the release of the game Spore, from gaming genius Will Wright; for those of you who don’t know about it, it’s a “multi-genre "massively single-player online game"”(Wikipedia).
I clicked, and read that the DRM which EA have included with the game to ‘prevent piracy’ means you can only register it three times in total; no good if you want to install/uninstall according to system space.As one poster put it “…what they have done is essentially created a rental for the price of the full game”.
Not a great way to treat valued customers.But the disgruntled customers are no longer stuck in a supply chain where their only recourse is to fire off a letter or phone a disinterested sales support hotline; they can actively (and perhaps rightly) trash the reputation of the game.In protest, there have so far been over2000 one-star ratings on the game’s Amazon profile...
Although it’s still number one in the charts (being the biggest most anticipated gaming release this week), subsequent sales will be strongly influenced by the feedback that services such as Amazon enable customers to share. Anyone who sees that many one-star ratings is going to investigate.
It’s sad to see other “information” based industries falling into the same trap as the music industry; instead of alienating customers with a heavy-handed policing system to prevent sharing, working out a way to encourage them to share the game with friends, and then upgrading those people to advanced versions of the game they would have paid a reasonable sum of money for would surely have been more popular…
…essentially, encourage the spread of the game further through working with communities.Instead, the games industry seems set on taking the same stance the music industry did; if you share it, you're a criminal.And we know how that’s working out…
