Kars Alfrink is principal designer at applied pervasive games studio Hubbub. In this recent talk at dConstruct, Kars Alfrink explores ways we might use games to alleviate some of the problems willful social self-separation can lead to. Kars looks at how people sometimes deliberately choose to live apart, even though they share the same living spaces. He discusses the ways in which new digital tools and the overlapping media landscape have made society more volatile. But rather than to call for a decrease in their use, Kars argues we need more, but different uses of these new tools. More playful uses.
The games Kars envisions can be used as meeting places, as ways to bring in new perspectives from the people we play with. Games can also function as testbeds for new ideas, to see what sticks, and perhaps bring the best ideas out into the world. To do this though, not all forms of games will work equally well, and Kars goes into some of the preconditions games for social change need to adhere to, in order to be successful.
Ultimately, Kars proposes we might be able to create games where we can share the manifold sets of rules we choose to live by, so that we gain deeper insights into the people we share our neighbourhoods with. And by doing so, we might transform society, and make it more resilient.
Here are his slides:
(via dconstruct.org)
