games and the real world

A few blogposts/speeches have really grabbed my attention this week and got me thinking about the number of routes open to us given what we're now realising is possible through advances in digital technology. Thinking about the future is an amazingly provocative and exciting prospect to the point that it's easy to forget it's actually us that's building it, one TED conference, blogpost or moment of self conscious behaviour change at a time. I guess the thing is though, is that yes it's true that it's us who builds the future but I don't mean those folks who work in tech, product development or consumer insight alone but instead those people combined with the members of society who adopt new behaviours as a result of the opportunities put in front of them. Sometimes these opportunities are in the first place crowdsourced ideas that originate not from a brand or think tank but instead in someone's bedroom.

Jesse Schell is a man I've never heard of before yesterday but after a little digging when watching his extraordinary speech at Dice 2010 I found found out he was one of the worlds leading figures in computer game design. It's not hard to see why, his slightly awkward but amazingly engaging presentation style soon revealed he had been thinking hard about what the hell is going on in the world of gaming and what wider implications it could have for brands and behaviour change.

He put the success of such things like Penguin Club, Mafia Wars and Farmville down to a series of clever psychological insights that showed these, on the surface of it, quite simplistic games understood human needs within an increasingly digital world. Somewhere in there was a fundamental change, we weren't looking to games to escape from the mundanity of physical life to instead go and shoot people in a fictional world , we were using these games to increase the amount of real human interaction. That's the thing about these games, although in a digital space, they are offering a real world connection usually with our 'friends' or 'followers'- it's proved amazingly powerful: Farmville now has more users than there are twitter accounts (I almost fell off my chair when he said that).

So there is a real world connection and once you start thinking about this, you see it everywhere. People want authenticity, a story and something that connects them back to the real world. Spending an increasing amount of time within the digital sphere has started to feed into an insecurity that they're losing grip with the real world - the one with mountains and other stuff where you are expected to know how to change a tire, put up a tent in under 10 minutes and cook good crispy roast potatoes.

The more I think about it my consumption habits have become increasingly digital but at the same time follow this trend - I've gravitated towards brands who give me the story and philosophy behind the product I'm buying and make me feel part of something (recent trivial example: bought a pair of howies trousers only to realise that sewn into the inside of the waistline were the words - 'always make tea out of a pot'). Brands such as Howies and Rapha are so involved in their approach to their worlds that they run lectures, festivals, write magazines and ultimately give people like me the chance to feel more real. I love them for it and incidentally spend more time than ever on their site going through all the videos and articles.

Jesse Schell rightly thinks we're going to a world where gaming will become a social norm, cycling rather than driving will score you points with TFL and drinking Doctor Pepper five times a week will mean good old Dr Pepper will start offering you perks and discounts as you climb up the leaderboard ahead of your fellow fizzy drinking rivals.

So what will come out of this increasing need for connection back to the real physical world? hopefully there will be a few things - useful post digital stuff like the newspaper club, more brands and organisations using games to change behaviour and as Umair Haque stated in a great post a few weeks ago a transformation in a companies end game - instead of being great, they need to focus on being good and actually try and explain their purpose and how it fits into the real world.

Frank Chimero boils this very eloquently in a recent blog entry...

I want you to produce real, valuable, lasting objects and services that allow me to be social with the people I care about. Let me be loved by the people who love me, and let me love those that I love. Sell things that help me to express my identity and nourish my curiosity. Make things that utilize my propensity use tools and to play, my need for accomplishment and my delight in completion. Let me make something. Let me connect, let me excel, let me feel something and let me finish. Let me be a human being.

Might have to print out that quote and stick it on the wall at work.