Innovation Beyond Play: Other Things Gamers do With Games

Speakers: Ben Sawyer

Track: Game Design

Format: Lecture

Experience Level: All

Description: Often innovation in the games industry stems from ideas that are developed or fueled by gamers themselves. By observing all that gamers do and organizing it into a taxonomy we can create a means for finding new ideas and innovation in games from gamers themselves.

Customer based innovation often involves something we call "the theory of the unintended" whereby innovation is sourced through new ideas customers apply to products outside their initial intended use. By adopting aggressively previously unintended product uses as well as creating environments conducive to customer innovation companies like Lego and others are harvesting innovation and profits from beyond the confines of their own R&D labs.

As part of an effort to inform the public about what gamers are doing with games, and to mine gamers for ideas for new applications for gaming Ben Sawyer of the Serious Games Initiative and consulting firm Digitalmill has assembled a knowledge-base of interesting (and often unintended) behaviors, outputs, and cultural developments related to games themselves. While some time will be spent on aspects beyond play many may be familiar with including modding, clans, machinima, and cos-play the talk will also focus on areas of activity that developers may not be as familiar with including in-game photography guilds, humor, in-game protests, and more. Through further research and work Sawyer has organized this into a comprehensive guide that can be used as a starting point to draw out new ideas. Once identified and categorized the work leads to a series of recommendations that attempt to tie these non-traditional ideas into useful strategies for traditional publishers and developers as well as others involved in gamings greater reach.