I have long been an enthusiast for games as an internet genre.
Today it is fast moving from its nerd image into mainstream popular engagement.
It comes in many forms. Yes, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft have their gaming machines and yes there are many stand alone devices for play. But have you noticed those people on the train playing on their mobiles? Have you seen the games that come across the ether to your PC?
We are now seeing games with augmented reality and delivered with QR codes. Games are filling a big slice of, what Clay Shirky might call Cognitive Surplus or Adam Williams ‘Gamification‘.
Games were once a genre in their own right but no more. Games are becoming integrated with PR, Marketing and advertising. They are used in education, healthcare and as part of the online buying experience. As Robert Scoble, doyen of the new digital world, showed in a YouTube video, Kinect is more of a shopping experience than a game.
For those of us who are in the business of engaging people with messages, culture, reputation, brand and product, the use and application of games is now an issue we have to consider as part of the communicator’s portfolio.
Some games are small, short, lightweight and others deeply engaging. Some are so subtle that one hardly notices that they demand engagement and involvement. The tenets of great communication.
Involvement in the message, the emotional and subliminal as well as the direct and ‘shareable’ experience is all part of network communication. Games are part of that.
On the cusp of the internet of things we also have to extend our thinking well beyond the games machine, PC, Slate or phone.
One might imagine, BP attempting to change its reputation with games engaging people at the petrol pump to deliver powerful (engaging) corporate messages. On the other hand, the idea of extending the Olympic Games onto a cooker to encourage both the purchase of new cookers and teen sons to tear themselves from the TV to make a meal for the family in the run up to the 100 metres!
Games can now take their place as a communication genre much as writing, pictures and movies have done for past generations – and look how useful they have been!
DP
publicasity
Great post!