Stories and Games
I'm sitting in Austin Airport trying to digest what has been a really interesting SXSW Interactive festival. Last year the big buzzy items were twitter and Second Life, but this year, while every single attendee seemed to be twittering furiously, I heard nary a mention of Second Life. How fickle the tech world is! There seemed to be a few more publishing types in attendance this year, but still a very tiny number relative to the amount of chatter in the book world on the impact that technology is starting to have on our business. The big talking point in Austin this year wasn't actually a technology announcement, but the controversial interview of Facebook CEO (and the world's youngest billionaire) Mark Zuckerberg.
By far the most thought provoking session I attended was Jane McGonigal's session on Reality, Games and Happiness; 'Reality is broken. Why aren't game designers trying to fix it?' is her basic question. She began by talking about research into 'happiness' which showed that there are four basic needs that promote a happy life; fulfilling work, the experience of being good at something, time spent with people we like and the chance to be part of something bigger. Multiplayer games, she proposed, deliver all these things whereas, unfortunately, real life often cannot. Game designers, she argued, were in a good position to deliver increased happiness in real life, because they already have the experience of creating 'happiness engines' in the games they develop. (There was lots more meaty stuff in this talk - check here for a full transcript).
This chimed with the session of Henry Jenkins, who when asked about the growing issue of internet addiction, argued that a) addiction was not a helpful word to use and b) that people spend so much time online and in alternate realities because they don't have sufficient opportunity to express themselves creatively in their day to day lives and work. An increased amount of attention is being given to the roles of games and play in encouraging creativity and developing skills and as our tools for online exploration and collaboration continue to develop, it is certain that we will see some exciting, challenging and, well, game-changing blendings of the real world and alternate realities in the months and years to come.
Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher
PS Penguin's own foray into games that are stories and stories that are games (produced with game designers extraordinaire Six to Start) starts next week. Sign up here to be alerted when the game begins...
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