Meaningful Play - Home

Animfx Conference, Wellington NZ

tim@straylight-studios.com (Tim Nixon) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:07:29 -0600

Straylight will be at the Animfx conference this weekend taking place in the Wellington Convention Centre 14th – 16th of November.

Visit our booth to have a play round with 3 of our games, included a first time look at our brand new title. I cant tell you what it is just yet, but I can say that if you’re into Meaningful Play as a way to spread the word on climate change, then you should definitely go out of our way to pay us a visit.

Virtual Retail

tim@straylight-studios.com (Tim Nixon) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:40:45 -0500

I’ll be taking part in an online symposium later in the week tackling the challenges that face virtual retail.

October 29-31 2008
An online symposium to discuss future possibilities for retail in Web 3D and Virtual Worlds, and the impacts these may have on our lives.
Free Event.

Having developed a number of online retail solutions we’ve had a real mixed bag of experience ranging from straight-up, flat web retail environments through to highly dynamic spatial navigation structures.

My theme (which wont be a surprise to anyone that reads this blog regularly) is “Where’s the Value”. We have to ask ourselves this question every single day. It can be so easy to get excited by the cool factor of a new technology and be completely distracted from the reality of whether new technology is actually going to enhance the user experience of your target demographic.

For more info checkout the The Future Telco Network

Thanks to John Eyles of Telecom New Zealand for organising this.

Tangental Learning

tim@straylight-studios.com (Tim Nixon) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:45:48 -0500

Great video, definitely worth a watch, well done to Daniel Floyd for putting it together.

(I know I’m a little bit late of the gate on this one, but better late than never)

Three points:

Tangental Learning is great, its a step in the right direction, but I think the video misses the most important point when it comes to games and learning. To ensure effective retention and transference of knowledge you need to actually integrate the knowledge / skill that you’re teaching into the gameplay experience as opposed to simply being a sideline attraction. Thats not to say that it needs to be a “shoved down your throat” as a critical path objective, but you need to reward your player for applying their new found knowledge or skill. That’s what Edgar Dale’s Cone of Learning is all about. It’s the actual doing that cements the understanding.
This type of video format (ZP inspired or not) works a heck of a lot better than a daunting essay
Entertainment mediums that consume a significant amount of a person’s time have a sort of cultural responsibility to the player. Culture is no longer passed on through bards or round campfires, but through movies, books, and yes even games. We need to think more about the lasting impression that an interactive experience has on someone, and how that helps define us as individuals and a collective culture.

New book and site: Changing the Game

tim@straylight-studios.com (Tim Nixon) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:16:10 -0500

Just had this book and page pointed out to me called Changing the Game by David Edery and Ethan Mollick. After reading through the synopsis I ordered a copy right away,

Changing the Game

From the preface:

“Games can make it fun for employees to learn how to manage a supply chain. Games can encourage customers to voluntarily spend hours learning about the features of a product. Games can encompass massive economies of virtual goods and services that are worth billions of real-world dollars. All of this, and much more, is happening right now at the intersection of business and games, and the forward-thinking companies at that junction have already begun to reap the great rewards of their effort. There are so many ways in which games are transforming the nature of work and play, that whether you work in a business, a governmental organization, or a non-profit, there is almost certainly a way to take advantage of games to better accomplish your goals.

So, are you ready to play?”

They’ve also put together a great page with links to quick fire examples of how game mechanics have been used in various forms to promote, education, and entertain, from the Google Image Labeler through to Americas Army.

Games for Non-Gamers 101

Edutainment on Consoles: We hear from the "big three"

tim@straylight-studios.com (Tim Nixon) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 23:52:16 -0500

Brian Crecente over at Kotaku took the initiative to hit up the big three console makers as to the future of educational content on their system.

You can see the full interview here

Here’s a distilled version of what they said:

Nintendo – Denise Kaigler

They’re already doing it, and have had wild success with Brain Age, Wii Fit, etc
Taking a broader approach to what “educational” means. It doesn’t need to be a curriculum thing, more like personal development / expression (see: Wii Music, My Spanish Coach), and games like Mystery Case Files that require more mental activity and focus, but are still primarily entertainment products
Nice quote around how games in general can be a positive influence “Games can open up the imagination, just like a good book or movie can”

Microsoft – Boyd Multerer

Very committed to it as a driver in expanding the mass market relevance of the 360
Focusing on development tools (XNA) and distribution models (XBLA Community Marketplace) that lower the cost of development for consoles, hence making consoles a more accessible platform for smaller educational projects
While both Nintendo and Sony pointed to their links with charities as their commitment to social responsibility, it seems Microsoft are the only ones invested to pushing forward the field of developing games which specifically address an educational or social problem

Sony – John Koller

Agrees consoles are a good platform for delivery of educational content, as the Gen Y demographic are fluent with their interfaces
Have already had some success with putting the PSP into schools
Educational games are a “secondary” (maybe tertiary, after casual entertainment?) focus for the console, and as such will become more relevant as the PS3’s 10 year lifecycle plays out
They see Buzz as having meaningful elements through development of general knowledge
Sights LittleBigPlanet as “exactly the type of game with the potential to be held up as providing a positive influence”

In short, Nintendo are happy they’re doing their bit, Microsoft are investing in the progression of game design as an educational medium, and Sony seem focused on extending the value proposition of entertainment titles through meaningful content such as user-created content.

Microsoft and NYU Get Behind Meaningful Play

tim@straylight-studios.com (Tim Nixon) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:35:22 -0500

In partnership with “Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Parsons, Polytechnic Institute of NYU, and other colleges”, Microsoft are launching a Games for Learning Institute at NYU, specifically focused on creating educational games to teach maths, science, and engineering.

Microsoft chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie said that “The Games for Learning Institute at NYU is a great example of how technology can change how students learn, making it far more natural and intuitive.”

It’s a great time for Meaningful Play. As the financial market continues to crumble along with educational standards, its becoming very clear that a brute force “throw more money at it” approach is not an effective solution for effectively engaging with Gen Y.

We need to be working smarter not harder to revitalize curriculum and teaching tools so they are relevant to todays students. Gen Y’s demand participation, personalization, interactivity, and community. Traditional teaching methods just cant compete with the engagement these kids experience through social networks and gaming. And what’s more, games aren’t just cool, but a superior method for understanding and experimenting with concepts and principles.

There is clearly huge opportunity in games based learning through Meaningful Play.

P.S. Over at Straylight we put up a couple of new pages explaining our approach to the utilization of Meaningful Play, in particular it’s application across the three “genres” we see, one of which is Education. Keen for everyone’s thoughts

Getting older...

tim@straylight-studios.com (Tim Nixon) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:16:35 -0500

So I was playing a game the other day that made me think.

In this case it was Square Enix’s Final Fantasy IV for the DS. Which, incidentally, is a very much better game than it’s predecessor on the same console.

The mechanic in the game that stuck with me is a very simple thing, but nonetheless was a striking contrast to the norm in the majority of games. Role-Playing Games), they’re called. They give you a number of characters that go from absurdly weak at the start of the game, to fantastically world-breakingly strong at the end of the game. It’s the accepted norm that as time passes (in-game) characters get stronger.

Your strength, stamina, vitality, wisdom, charisma etc… all get better.

sub-images may be ©Square Enix, displayed under fair use.

As I was leveling up to defeat the next huge boss under a large waterfall, I noticed that a character in my party, Tellah, was getting weaker. In the gaming sense, Tellah was still gaining from experience, his intellect and spirit were increasing, but his strength, speed and stamina were decreasing.

He is an old character, getting older.

The fact that he wasn’t in quite the same shape as his team members subtly conveys themes of aging not usually seen in video games. Not having yet played the latest in the Metal Gear series), I can’t comment on how it treats aging, and the issues that it brings. But it was great to be confronted with this in the context of play…

It almost was enough to make me not want to level up, to stall the progression of time. It gave me the feeling that time is slipping through your fingers, not wanting to confront the reality that we will all face… eventually.

There are many games (and movies for that matter) that deal with issues of death and loss, but the subtlety in this mechanic made for a particularly poignant moment for me, small and quiet in the context of the bigger story and themes passing by in the rest of the game, but nonetheless there.

The experience of FF-IV is much better off for this.

Bank Quest! (grawgh!)

tim@straylight-studios.com (Tim Nixon) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:23:29 -0500

If I had this when I was a kid, maybe I’d be looking down on the world from atop a plump nest-egg of spare change, living in the Bahamas bankrolling Mojitos on the interest.

Either way, this seems like a great way to inspire kids to feed their piggy banks.

What I’m not completely convinced of are the linkages between the gameplay and the real world message that we should be teaching kids about the power of savings and investment. This seems to sidestep the issue a little by giving them an immediate reward for putting their money away.

The trick will be whether the kids then see the benefit of those savings down the track, and can then substitute in their own motivation to bank money (as opposed to blow it on candy) sighting that long term benefit, as opposed to just putting pennies away for a new suit of virtual armor.

Another thing I found a while ago in a similar vein is Handipoints which rewards kids for completing household chores.

Game Convention Leipzig

tim@straylight-studios.com (Tim Nixon) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:26:29 -0500

I’ll be speaking here tomorrow at the Leipzig Games Convention as part of the Serious Games Panel. If you’re at the conference then come along, it should be a good session. We’re going to focus on what we actually mean by Serious Games, and a lot of the typical issues with achieving creative and commercial success with the application of games outside of pure entertainment.

Panel: Serious Games

Wednesday, 20.08.2008
11:30 am – 12:20 pm

Conference Floor
Room E
Business

André Peschke
Bob Bates
Joost Schouten
Tim Nixon

Small Worlds is Neat

tim@straylight-studios.com (Tim Nixon) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:32:06 -0500

I’ve been taking a little time to look around Small Worlds and it’s quite a unique addition to the spectrum of virtual worlds out there.

Things I think it does right:

It’s Flash, and hence immediately multi-platform
It understands that 3D is by no means a necessity and for most people is actually an unwelcome complication
It’s tidy. They obviously have some great communication designers working for them
It’s a layer over existing applications linking into YouTube, Flickr etc and enhancing an experience that people are already familiar with. They’re not trying to reinvent the wheel!
It works. Nuff said for anyone who’s had the pleasure of attempting navigation of most other virtual worlds
Their avatar creation system is easy and fun. The right balance between usability and freedom
The commercialization model isn’t in your face.
Being able to create avatars for your friends and mail it to them? Brilliant!
Adorable little pets

Areas where it could improve:

Let people see what it looks like inside right from the front page
Less text in the tutorial screens, I wanna play not read
A shade more vertical space to move around would be nice
Walking around spaces needs a little tweaking
Trying to click on the close button of a moving dialog box is somewhat tricky

Compared to Google’s recently released Lively, this is slick, fast, and most importantly, functional. I’ve got to say I was terribly unimpressed by Lively, and hope that they’re planning refining it a lot more. My money is on Lively going down a similar route to Google Video, where their top tier entry into the virtual world space comes by way of acquisition as opposed to internal development.

The long term plan for Small Worlds iis to expand the world and empower third parties to add content in a consistent and efficient manner. This could be a great platform for the delivery of Meaningful Play, so we’ll be keeping an extra special eye on it.

Playing with self-realisation

tim@straylight-studios.com (Tim Nixon) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 23:17:42 -0500

Productivity and self-realisation seem to be increasingly important for us all. In fact part of the motivation for us establishing our stance on Meaningful Play was through our observation of increasing self-analysis in mainstream media (reality television) and literature (self-help books). We’re constantly looking for ways to make ourselves better, and its seems more than ever that there simply isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done.

I’m a massive fan of Tina Su’s excellent blog on “creativity, clarity, and happiness”. Through the blog she presents a clear and concise set of tactics for dealing with the issues which shackle us from becoming true masters of our own destiny.

Think Simple Now – Tina Su

Recently I’ve been thinking about how these sorts of lessons might be communicated in game form. While both Wii Fit and Sony’s Eye Toy Kinetic focus on the physical and meditative elements of a harmonious existence, there has yet to be a mainstream success that tackles some of the more psychological elements.

This line of thinking brought me back to the format of the Chinese Proverb. Such neat and tidy little nuggets of insight they are to reflect on. What if we could create actual gameplay metaphors to package insights such as Tina’s into a format as succinct as a proverb? The only missing element would be a system to tie these micro-experiences together, delivering them contextually to the user in response to their current state of mind, and tracking their progression down the path to enlightenment.

An obvious complication would be the sensitivity of the personal information that the user would put into the game (tracking feelings such as happiness, self worth, productiveness, etc), and the reliance on players to be honest with their inputs for the game to meaningfully respond to their state of mind. As such the game would be an incredibly personal experience, providing quite the challenge when it comes to testing. However, I feel that if inputs from the game could be shared anonymously, then there may well be people out there happy to share their stories from the path to self-realisation in a similar way to Tina.

Silent Hill Art Director Gets Into Serious Games

tim@straylight-studios.com (Tim Nixon) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:22:18 -0500

Tales of Tales: Interview with Takayoshi Sato

It’s fantastic to have industry vets like Sato sing the praises of Serious Games / Meaningful Play. A huge issue with this business of making games that matter is convincing good developers that the design challenges present in this sort of work are just as, if not more interesting than those in the core gamer demographic.

While we see a lot of complaints from developers wanting more freedom, more challenges, more ambition in their developments, few have pointed to the creative and economic potential of Meaningful Play as a way for the industry to step forward. So, let’s help Sato out and get the word out there!

Check of the official site of Takayoshi Sato to see his work with Virtual Heroes.

Thanks to Kotaku for the heads up.

Embedding Real World Skills in Games

tim@straylight-studios.com (Tim Nixon) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 01:10:35 -0500

Great essay by Danc over at Lost Garden

What activities can be turned into games?

Inspired by an experience with Wii Fit, the crux of the article is that any measurable skill can form the core mechanic of a game. A wider game system can then be used to motivate the player and track their progress, providing a unique, dynamic, and fun way to pick up new skills.

The gravity of this revelation is not lost of Danc:

“As more leisure games emerge that mediate and accelerate the acquisition of skills, there is going to be a economic incentive to spread the science and craft of game design far beyond our tiny game industry. Game design is not just about games. It is a transformational new product development technique that can turn historically commoditized activities into economic blockbusters.”

Wii Fit seems to do a much better job of making this sort of thing fun, an element of the equation that I personally think is still sorely missing from Brain Age.

Commercialising Ideas

tim@straylight-studios.com (Tim Nixon) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:48:09 -0500

Last weekend we had the distinct pleasure of attending X Media Lab: Commercialising Ideas in Wellington at the Te Papa National Museum. The theme for this lab emerged from New Zealand’s classic problem: We have great ideas but we’re traditionally very poor at taking them to market. The XML team did a great job of assembling a group of international mentors that could give their unique perspective how to capture the value of your innovation, and find a channel which can turn an idea into dollar signs.

The format of the event is quite unlike anything I’ve seen before. The first day was open to all as a lecture style symposium, each speaker getting no more than 20 minutes to present. This rapid fire approach forced each of the speakers to really crystalize their core message, resulting in a day packed full of valuable insight which I’m sure got a lot of people thinking more about how they build valuable businesses.

A couple of my core take-aways from the talks:

Think about your customer, get a picture of them in your head, on paper, on the wall, wherever. Make sure everyone in your company knows who you’re making things for and why they care
Iterate, iterate, iterate. Nothing is ever finished
Work with your community, your early adopters are your best salespeople. Give them the power to promote your brand
Company culture and a healthy collaborative design environment will make or break the quality of your output. Companies like Blizzard and Valve are well known for attributing their success to nailing this. Ask yourself: Are you really listening? Are you really being heard? Be careful though, design by committee can also be dangerously distracting. Make sure it’s structured.
Cash is king. Classic quote but seriously, this is the thing that destroys far too many great companies. New Zealander’s are traditionally bad at asking for money. If you’re not happy asking for someones money, then you’re obviously not confident that your product or service is actually worth them parting with their hard earned cash.

The next two days took a completely different format as 16 project teams were selected to go one-on-one with the international mentors over 10 sessions. These sessions saw us take our philosophy and products in front of industry superstars such as Tom Duterme, Noah Falstein, Suresh Seetharaman, Brian Seth Hurst, Sean Kauppinen, Marcelino Ford-Livene, Sean Kauppinen, Hugh Mason, and Chris Deering.

This format presented an unmatched opportunity to get face time with a wide range of high ranking industry pros, each bringing their own unique perspective and a positive approach to working with the teams to refine their value proposition.

I’m glad to say that everyone really bought into the Meaningful Play message, with each and every person we met coming up with a new and interesting application for the philosophy. Our Studio Manager, Emma, diligently took notes throughout all the workshops and at the end of the lab we were wondering what the value of that notebook might be. While we could go through and count up the hours and potential consultancy fees that might have got us the same feedback and insight, the real answer was quite clear to us: it was invaluable, a collection of strategic insight and action points that presents truly limitless value at this crucial point of our company’s evolution.

X Media Lab truly is the best in its class worldwide. Congratulations to Megan Elliot and Brendan Harkin for doing such a phenomenal job. Cant wait till next years lab!

Lao Tzu Digs Meaningful Play

tim@straylight-studios.com (Tim Nixon) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 20:55:24 -0500

One of our programmers passed on a quote to me this morning with resonates with our Meaningful Play message:

“If you tell me, I will listen.
If you show me, I will see.
If you let me experience, I will learn.”
– Lao Tzu (6th Century B.C.)

People have little patience these days for inefficient, passive learning environments. They demand customisation, personalisation, interactivity, and engagement. Ultimately, the best way to truly understand a concept or system is to experience it , to experiment with it, discover its limits, break it, play with it. Games are the perfect medium for providing a space in which this sort of Meaningful Play can occur. Whether it be a metaphor or direct simulation of a real-world environment, this truly is a hark back to the classical student-mentor style of one-on-one learning, and a welcome departure from static, cookie cutter style “push” teaching methods.

This reminds me, I finally got around to reading The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Neat stuff, and actually a great bedtime read as something to settle and clear the mind before drifting off.