Games – a social change

Possibilities and a tool
What games of today are bringing us, is what they’ve always done – they motivate us to participate and interact. During gameplay we learn to think again in order to master challenges and reach goals, at the same time games are challenging our way of thinking within frames made out of their rules. A game doesn’t just mean interaction and entertainment though, but also possibilities to bring more values with other purposes within several different branches. Advertising and marketing are a few of such branches where games part goal is to sell and act as intermediary, but they can also work as a tool to engage and learn the participants something. In such circumstances games may act as generators that drives a specific message together with its participant/consumer thus enlightening her.

Internet, interact, interplay
The Internet, which in the western world, has become a necessity in our everyday life with its possibilities of interaction. In many cases we even depend on that type of interaction to succeed in our everyday work. That has not always been the case, if we look at Internet during the 90´s, but with evolution come progress. This progress has resulted in games and the Internet having found common similarities. The common benefits with digital games and the Internet are that both can be used disregarded of participants, time and place that make both phenomenons easy to access. This has also lead to them being used by many, both young and old, since one can play as one see fit. Truth also be told that all people play games in some form, if chance is given. Games aren’t just for kids anymore or rather; not officially just for kids, since trends are telling us different – both boys and girls play all types of games, disregard of age. If it hasn’t already hit you; this make games an important tool for influence and to work with, when it comes to changing behaviors and reaching certain target groups.

“The gaming sector speeds on with full throttle and no less, especially since gaming seems to have moved out of the boys rooms and into our living rooms, says Ingemar Erlandsson, analyzer on GFK.” -David Jansson, Market.se

Games just need to gain understanding and acceptance for what they can accomplish. Though this is something they’ve already started to gain, mainly because of those generations that has grown up with the digital revolutions. They have experienced just how addictive games like Pac-Man, Tetris, Halo, Super Mario Bros. and Final Fantasy can get, from the arcade-halls to computers to consoles to the Internet to cell phones to MP3-players. They are also the ones who play the now worldwide known online game – World of Warcraft. These generations know what they like about games and what makes them good. That’s why the core mechanic of games also needs to be designed with the targeted group in mind, not just with the skin they shall get later on. This is how games can change behavior of people – with the activity of participant and receiver in mind, meaning what a person actually does in a game. If having this in mind, great games can be made. This is what sets the many different games and their respective purpose apart, which is why we shouldn’t generalize when we discuss games as a homogeneous phenomena. The power of games also lay here, what makes them unique resulting in people remembering them – often because of the unique experience they create.

Today we also want to interact and experience more than before, but also interact in new ways. Perhaps this has to do with the direction and new advanced technique is taking us, or perhaps it has to do with us demanding old boundaries to be blurred – between what’s real and what’s not, what’s possible and what’s not. What ever it is we don’t like to feel limited when it comes to new experiences, because these days we like to tailor dreams and experiences as much as possible. Even the way we network with other people has made old limits get re-drawn through the Internet. Just look at Facebook for instance and how we now collect friends, and while you are there, check out some of the games you can apply to your site. That might be the reason as to why the digital revolutions constantly keep amazing us. All this keep coming within arms reach too and if not already taken for granted, it will be.

“These days games exist where they didn’t used to. Within three years no one will be able to buy an MP3-player that doesn’t contain games. I think, that to find a cell phone today without a game is generally impossible. Evolution is very clear and strong and the speed to that evolution will increase, not decrease.” -Jesper Lövkvist, Creative Director Agency

An alternate reality game
Even if computers and the Internet have become a common place to meet and play games, it doesn’t mean that’s the only place where we play games, on the contrary. If we look at the history of games the digital revolution is a new phenomena, though the term play isn’t. Even when we play as children we set up rules that show a will to imitate and play real life – we create real simulations displaying reality and it’s various situations (for example to play house). This is something we gladly activate ourselves with since it both educates us and further our creativity when exploring new experiences, within the safe sphere of play. Something that quite recently has “popped up” (in USA) is a possibility to continue developing our “childsplay” where it left of, years back. It is called Alternate Reality Game (A.R.G.). This style of play took its first steps with the company 42 Entertainment and their idea to advertise the film A.I. by director Steven Spielberg. The game – or the interactive story, was about catching peoples´ interest in a more subtle way to create curiosity and buzz before the premiere of the film. Everything came to life through the Internet, various events and other means of interaction.

“So there was the project: create an entire self-contained world on the web, say a thousand pages deep, and then tell a story through it, advancing the plot with weekly updates, concealing each new piece of narrative in such a way that it would take clever teamwork to dig it out.” -Sean Stewart, 42 Entertainment

The creation, which went under the name of The Beast (since it contained 666 components), never showed its true purpose when it was active – to advertise the film. It never had to, since The Beast took care of that as people participated and got more deeply involved with the whole story. Three million people participated all over the world, and The Beast created an incredible buzz for the film. It became a viral marketing success. Another example of 42 Entertainments creations is the promotion of an album by the rock group Nine Inch Nails, entitled Year Zero.

This time though it was the lead singer of the band – Trent Reznor that took the initiative to create an A.R.G. with the aid of the company developers. Trent Reznor had the idea and concept of an album, which was about criticizing the United States government´s policies as of 2007, projecting a dystopien vision of its impact on the state of events in 2022. Trent though did emphasize that the purpose of the A.R.G. wasn´t to advertise the album, but to create an experience in which the album just played its part. In short, this is how it all rolled out and worked:

• On February 12, 2007, fans found that a new Nine Inch Nails tour t-shirt contained highlighted letters that spelled out the words “I am trying to believe”.
• Fans discovered that this phrase was registered as a website URL, and soon several related websites were found in the IP range, all describing a dystopian vision of the fictional “year 0000″.
• Digit Online later reported that 42 Entertainment had created these websites to promote Year Zero as part of an alternate reality game.
• Rolling Stone described the fan involvement in this promotion as the “marketing team’s dream”.

The game has only begun
Those players (in said branch) who aren´t ready to answer peoples´ expectations regarding this social change, will probably stray behind and missing out on reaching targets. The digital revolution was born a long time ago and has now reached its adolescence. It is now it requires room to evolve by growing through creative and daring thinking. Those players who see this, and by this manage to use its benefits, will no doubt reap what has been sown with great and various profit. Games and game related phenomenon sells like never before, and nothing points toward the opposite. This social change will not slow down or end soon, on the contrary – the game for the future has only begun. Who would like to play?