At the first (actually I think, only) panel at the Come Out & Play festival today, looking at the future of urban, interactive street games. I'll get links up later, so some of these notes will make more sense once those links are up.
I think that Rob Jenner (sorry, I didn't write down his name!) from Raven Chase (Treasure Hunts, Corporate Teambuilding — More Fun Than Amazing Race! – Ravenchase Adventures), combination of DaVinci Code, National Treasure and the Great Race. Life event that takes place across a specific city.
Annette Mace (Ahh... Art Igniting Minds | The Team), Performance Lab, looking at blurring the lines between theater & audience, as well as looking at new places to do theater.
Jane McGonigal (Jane McGonigal Biography) talked about her work on The Lost Ring, which built a mythology around a lost Olympic sport involving blindfolds & mazes. I wasn't able to get up to Central Park to play it yesterday and I'm sorry that I missed it.
Kevin Slavin (area/code) from AreaCode is the 4th panelists and I always love the work that they're doing.
A big shift in driving the adoption of urban games is the willingness of the audience to be engaged in play.
Big challenge is that too many of the games are designed as "one off's" and there's no real, long time game play.
Jane talked about the addition of sports equipment to aid in physical fitness (like Nike+), which means that maybe games played during your everyday life may aid in getting people more active.
Kevin just showed a great article about the "Sheffield map," showing the reduction of roaming space for children over generations. Grandfather could travel over 6 miles on his own as a kid; his grandson can travel to the end of his block, about 300 yards. (How children lost the right to roam in four generations | Mail Online) The point was made that while people are more & more willing to engage in urban games while our roaming space is being reduced.
Kevin has three technologies that he's most interested in:
Jane -- What I do in my real life counts toward my gaming adventure. This is a really interesting idea and really plays into the idea of brand utility, but in a seriously damn, cool way! This is why brands need to really be paying attention to what's happening in this space in order to learn how they can bring it to their audiences.
Games can also be a great social activation tool and help people to change their behavior.
There's more activities today and we may head over there this afternoon for more fun & games!
Link: :: Come Out & Play 2008 ::.
Sent wirelessly from Nokia 9500 & T-Mobile
Comments