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How games will change our behaviour

By on February 23, 2010

This is a presentation given at DICE by Jesse Schell that I was alerted to by Shanti Bergel.

It’s a full 30 mins, but the first 20 minutes focus on how few game designers really saw the emergence of casual/social games (think Wii, Wii-Fit, Farmville etc).

It then points out that games are now *everywhere*. Key example: the new Ford hybrid car has a graphic of a tree that grows the more petrol you save. As Jesse says, “they put a game in a car”.

He then goes on to posit a world in which we get Achievement points for everything, sponsored by business, non-profits, government and more. A world where the awareness that everything we do can be tracked and monitored and left as a legacy for our grand children. And possibly, just possibly, it will make us a better person.

If you’re short of time, watch from about 20 minutes to get a view of a world that is either utopian or terrifyingly dystopian, depending on your point of view.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

About Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas is the founder of Gamesbrief, a blog dedicated to the business of games. It aims to be informative, authoritative and above all helpful to developers grappling with business strategy. He is the author of a growing list of books about making money in the games industry and other digital media, including How to Publish a Game and Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games, and Penguin-published title The Curve: thecurveonline.com