I did a series of 'The Future of...' type of content for a magazine and just though to release one of it now.  The other two will be out when QUTE is out sometime July/August.

I am not a gamer, but I was interested enough in it to attend an all-day conference ‘Serious Games’ by X Media Lab in Sydney during my 5 day stay there to check out a couple of other events (see “The Future of Creativity and City). The event exceeded my expectations and I came out obviously excited enough to write an article about it. The thing about this conference which has shattered my ‘non gamer’ beliefs was that it has opened my mind to a serious of possibilities for games out there.

The future of gaming in broadcast television

Michel Mol is the Director of Innovation and New Media for the Netherlands Public Broadcasting which is their version of our ABC. Even though he has not stated this, his role would be one of frustration as media audiences become fragmented, smart, picky. Recently, I have just watched a Youtube of a group of young Gen Zers proclaim that television is going to be dead. He, and broadcast television, knows that in order to continue engage this audience, television needs to play the innovation and new media game. Mol presented examples on how a television show can engage this young audience – from episodes being broadcasted on shirts to creating far more engaging games based on television shows that can be played on various portable devices. We see a bit of the Old creeping in though – intellectual property protection. What surprises me here is that the question as to how this type of audience can truly engage is to Make It Their Own and that means loosening up or getting rid of the iron fist that is copyright.

The future of gaming and the arts

Joshua Harris is an artist and entrepreneur. He creates tech and new media focused projects (I call it human experiments) in which a notable one is similar to Big Brother. In the late 90’s, he gathered a 100 people, webcams, built a custom built terrarium underneath New York and monitored the experiment. I am still wrapping my head around why alongside the reason that he wanted to understand the human condition. He was the focus of Ondi Timoner’s documentary (another X Media Lab speaker) “We Live In Public”. During X Media Lab he was talking about a new art project that he had in mind called ‘Wired City’ which is a real-life World of Warcraft style project. It wasn’t just the arts that I was pondering on after his presentation. There were ethics issues as well and the arts can be a good platform to explore these issues as well as a counter-argument. On another note, Alana Valentine (playwright and screenwriter) was talking about writing more ‘human’ characters and more compelling narratives in games and as we see artificial intelligence improve, we may see this sort of interdisciplinary fusion.

The future of gaming in education

We are already aware of games and education such as factual information being integrated into a compelling narrative in a particular game (oh you know, like Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego). What was very interesting here is simulation games and it’s not just flight simulators. We are talking about Keren Flavell (Co Founder Treet TV) presenting examples of how students can learn about mining in a 3D simulation environment or firefighters learning about the properties of fire during training. I used to go to USQ which has a flexible online learning option – and eLearning can go beyond that and include simulation. Now, if only we can work on the broadband speeds in rural Australia...

The future of gaming in teaching and learning

In the future, textbooks (Cath Godfrey, GM Higher Education for McGraw Hill Sydney) will be more integrated with gaming either through CD-ROM’s or exclusive portal access after the purchase of a textbook. Your lecturers and tutors will need to develop how they teach – especially when the digital media-saturated generation Z enter higher education. This generation has seen both the peers and adults in their lives embrace technology and they expect more from their educators (maybe moreso than us Gen Y’s – I remember playing DOS games on that primary school computer). Lee Sheldon, games designer and professor at Indiana University, uses team-based games to teach his students on how to write effective, compelling and successful games.

The future of gaming in the Queensland creative industries

According to the 2005 QLD Creative Industries Strategy, gaming is not mentioned but it may be found underneath ‘Film, Television and Entertainment Software’. The future of gaming and its role within the creative industries will go beyond that. I used to work with someone who was involved in a performance piece that was based on a computer game. Cipher Cities is a great example of gaming, mobility and the incorporation of real spaces. A team from Brisbane based interactive company, Hoodlum, created an online game (find815.com) based on a TV show. In Brisbane, you would thinking that the fall of something like the Brisbane based Pandemic studios would affect its role in the creative industry, but that is wrong. The last X Media Lab speaker, Morgan Jaffit was previously its Creative Director and is now Head of a new venture, The Impossible Changing Brain Foundation and he continues to create innovative titles but perhaps for a whole new audience. Brisbane will also soon have Australia’s first ever video game bar which is an initiative by Australian Gamer CD, Guy Blomberg.

Article also seen in Qute Mag 'The Future' edition: