This is a short presentation given at the UNISA Library Technology Showcase 2013 where I discussed the importance of games.

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2. • I am also a Multimedia Specialist
• I have been lecturing in Multimedia for 7 years
• What is Multimedia
• Information Science
• Visual Design
• Computer science
• Web based development
• How to combine all of the above
• My dissertation is about Alternate Reality Games
• I also focus on:
• Game studies
• Gamification
• Serious games
• Game design theory
• Recently I gained an interest in Game Design and education
• This interest is not in educational games, but in using games to teach and
educate
• There is a difference, in my opinion!
• Educational games is thematic similar to the content you are teaching
• Games for teaching is designing a game about aliens/robots/time
travellers where the actions you take are fun and entertaining but
requires you to exercise skills that you require in the real world
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3. • Games as a medium engage people
• By nature games are interactive and immersive (or they are supposed to be)
• Games provide the player with the feeling of power (the “epic win” as stated
by Jane McGonigal)
• Games provide players with the feeling of control (player agency)
• Games are FUN!
• Games are engaging – They create flow
• Flow is a state of mind achieved by a player when he experiences a
high degree of focus and enjoyment - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Games are a literacy
• This statement is a very hot topic at the moment
• It was made by Eric Zimmerman in a very recent essay he wrote called
“A Manifesto for a Ludic Century”
• In the essay he claims that the new century is the century of games
(calling it the Ludic Century)
• He claims that not only should people be technology literate but also
and visually literate but to survive in the Ludic Century, one should be
gaming literate
• The manifesto is a lot more than that, but this quote of Eric
Zimmerman stuck with me: Games are a literacy
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4. • I included this section just to be clear on what the requirements are for
something to be considered a game (defined in Rules of Play – Zimmerman
and Salen)
• There are, as with most things in this field, a large variety of definitions for
games
• Games have been around for thousands of years, they are ancient
• People have been playing games since civilisation started
• Games are:
• A system containing
• A collection of activities
• Guided by artificial rules
• To overcome obstacles
• And to achieve specific goals
• The activities have meaning within the context of the game
• The activities may appear to be completely inane outside of the game context
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5. • Serious games are games used for more than just entertainment
• Serious games are used to teach people things in an environment that is safer
for them
• Examples of usage of serious games:
• Military training – simulate real world scenarios in the safety of the
training facility
• Educational games – teaching people something through using games
• Training games – To train people to use certain equipment
• Training games should differ from simulation training by still
adhering to the requirements of “what is a game”
• In most of these examples, the game should still adhere to the requirement of
what it means to be a game
• Examples:
• Arma I – Used for military training
• Mars Rover Landing – Awareness of the landing of the Curiosity rover
(science)
• FoldIt – A puzzle game that simulates protean folding. Solving the
puzzles can result in real world science application
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6. • Games designed to modify the behaviour of people
• Persuasive games take advantage of the fact that games are a persuasive
medium
• Ian Bogost extensively cover this topic in his book, Persuasive Games
• He also started a company that creates “persuasive games”
• Examples of these games are (http://www.persuasivegames.com/games/):
• Colorfall: a puzzle game to promote cognitive health and physical
activity
• Debt ski: a game about savings, debt and its consequences
• Fatworld: a game about politics and nutrition
• There are a lot of other examples as well
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7. • Gamification is the use of game thinking and game elements in a non-gaming
context in order to engage users of an existing system
• Gamification enhances the experience of using existing system by borrowing
elements from games
• Examples:
• Nike+, Strava etc. - Fitness
• Zombie run – Closer to a game
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8. • http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/07311.09363.pdf
• Serious games are still being defined
• Many of these definitions may appear to overlap
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9. • To play a game is to engage in the system and adhere to all the requirements
imposed by this system
• To play a game is to move around in this rigidly defined system (game)
• The system is designed with the purpose of building a context, an experience
• The purpose of the system is to be engaged in, to play in.
• Gamification has a system in place that fulfils certain criteria
• Gamifying this system, you place game elements on top of this already built
system
• The express purpose of the system is designed when the system is developed
(book airplane tickets, buy goods online, read the news)
• Games are designed and built from the ground up as games
• Gamified systems have game design elements applied to them to increase
their engagement.
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10. • An ARG (Alternate Reality Game) is a game
• An ARG is also a narrative that encapsulates the players reality
• The player participates in a story (world) that is not distinguishable from the
real world, except for the fact that there are aliens ☺
• An ARG requires players to play together.
• The players need to solve puzzles that cannot be solved individually
• The players must play as a community (share information, discuss solutions,
discuss the narrative etc.)
• An ARG use multimedia – from snail mail, to augmented reality applications.
• An ARG requires the player to accept the mantra “This is not a game”
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11. • We are currently developing an ARG that will attempt to exercise library
activities
• We are targeting a group of students that are busy completing our information
literacy course presented at the University of Pretoria
• The game will be a game, not a gamefied system
• The actions the players will take during the game (the activities guided by the
artificial rules) will be related to library usage
• The goals the players need to achieve (the goals of the game) will be game
world related
• The rules of the game is extremely broad due to the nature of an ARG
• The players can do anything they want, pursue any avenue of enquiry
• Certain actions will results in game related outcome (story related events)
• The reason players will participate in the game will be:
• Because it is interesting (the story interests them)
• It is fun! (hopefully)
• The players control the reality
• The players are engaged
• They want to see what happens next
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