Hello Marco, we are working on an iPhone app and will update the blog when it is available. If you want help any time, you can use the #gamestorming hashtag on Twitter and there are lots of people there who can help. There is also a forum where you can post your questions here.

Also, the mention of “fog of war” reminded me of the FOG factor that Straker (mentioned separately) suggests for identifying the different quality of information available i.e. Facts, Opinions and Guesses.

Gordon,

Thanks for your comment! I do think there is a middle ground between loose, improvised play and games as described by formal game theory — the kinds of games where rules give structure to the play, making it possible to include more people, and where the constraints imposed are not barriers to creativity but, instead, because they create a universe that adheres to certain rules, make space and opportunity for *more* creativity. An example from my art-school training would be constraining the size of sketches to ensure they are not too formal, elaborate or overconsidered. My sense is that a game should have as many rules as necessary but no more. Definitely worth more discussion.

“It seems they are rejecting the very technologies they are in the process of inventing.” When I read that, I took a few deep breaths. Because it’s true.

When intelligent people are given the freedom to organize their own work, this is how they do it. With improvisation, play, rules that aren’t firm or rigidly applied, on a playing field that doesn’t have well defined edges, and where everything is always overflowing, or breaking down and being repaired.

It’s only when people are tasked to design other people’s work that they leave all that behind, and try to create strict, unambiguous rules, playing fields with well-defined edges, and structures that constrain first, enable second.

You talk about the old paradigm of the “industrial revolution” but I think your piece shows that the problem has carried forward into the post-industrial world, because it’s actually about the difference between organizing our own work vs organizing other people’s work.

I was struck how your piece slipped from games, the real-world spontaneous social activities, to “Games” as theorized by Game Theory , formal, quantitative, rule-governed predictable activities. The sociology of work shows us that “Games” have a lot to do with how people justify their actions (especially to their bosses) but they have little to do with how things get done. Twas ever thus. 🙂

The thing that makes a game great is the experience, and I think that audiences enjoy games to the degree that they can place themselves, in their imagination at least, “in the game.” Many games are also aesthetically pleasing, indeed some would call them an art form.

Knowledge games as a category, in my mind, are specifically aimed at exploring complex or ambiguous spaces — the experience of the game is at once a creative act, a skill-building, as well as an insight-generating, activity. Its primary value is for the participants.

When games get “serious” as you put it, is also a point when they have become formalized and ritualized. By this time the value for discovery and new insights is diminished. So maybe by the time a knowledge game becomes a serious game, then it’s no longer a knowledge game but has become simply a game.

As far as the league, the results of a knowledge game are in the insights, products or services that it generates, and the arena for this is the business and social environment.

Most knowledge games aren’t win-lose because they aren’t zero-sum games; they have a tendency to enlarge the pool of resources and opportunity for everyone. So I wouldn’t expect to see rankings and standings anytime soon.

1. Great games have audiences. Soccer’s audience is world wide, college football’s audience is passionate. There’s audiences for online games like quake and warcraft. There’s even audiences for curling. I would suggest that when a game get’s serious, it gets and audience. What does this mean for participation? Is there an audience for knowledge games?

2. Team profit, leagues administer. FIFA is a non-profit. They play in countries and look to benefit the economy. They sponsor young players, and try to give back. They have a steady revenue, and don’t need to grow. Manchester united on the otherhand, is a business. They sell shirts, swag, and tickets. They buy players, and sell happiness. Where is our league, so that we can build our teams?

I was about to ask you what the difference between play and gaming was, and then you answered it with that last comment.

Love the few sentences about index cards as game pieces and the whiteboard as a playing field. Wish I’d read that before the Vizwriters webinar yesterday.

– Austin