musings of a social architect

A Bootcamp for your Brain

As many gamers know from experience -- and research is now bearing out -- playing certain games can sharpen your mental skills and "re-wire" your reflexes. An "brain-training" industry is evolving around this reality. Over at SmartPlanet, Vince Thompson shared a video about a RL storefront business delivering a customized, social "brain training" experience. Vince also lists a number of companies -- including  Shufflebrain -- building and distributing games that sharpen your brain. 

Photograb Game Widgets are LIVE!

Hey Photograb players - you can now post your favorite Photograb games on your blog, web page, or SNS profile! Just click the Embed button on any game page, and grab the code for the Widget size you want (small, medium, large). If you're a game creator, this is an awesome way to share your creations! Here's what the large-size widget looks like. Check it out - post some games - happy Photograbbing!

A different take on "Putting the Fun in Functional"

Here's a Southwest Airlines employee who just HAD to have a bit of creative fun with his job. Made me smile :-D

GamesBeat is shaping up to be a great conference

I'm excited to be speaking at GamesBeat next week. Our panel is at 2:15.

The Influences of Video Design: How are gaming principles stimulating innovation in the non-gaming world? Moderator: David Edery (Microsoft & co-author of “Changing the Game”) Participants: Bing Gordon (Kleiner Perkins), Rajat Paharia (Bunchball), Amy Jo Kim (Shufflebrain), Gabe Zichermann (rmbr) Promoting human interaction is the key to achieving success in business and in life, and gaming has become the most effective way of encouraging these interactions. We’ll discuss how gaming principles are changing the rules of engagement to the extent where they foster learning, reading, customer acquisition and basic application design.

The entire day looks great -- check out the agenda and speakers. This lineup goes beyond "the usual suspects." I'm looking forward to hearing how these folks see the games industry expanding and changing. Should be an illuminating day.

There's still a few seats left -- you can register here and get 10% off with discount code. I hope to see you there! Please come say hi if you're able to make it. 

Playcrafter: make your own games (very cool tool)

Game-ifying Your Digital Lifestream

The boundary between online and offline life is disappearing. This is the new paradigm for staying in touch: the "ambient intimacy" that comes from sharing bits of our daily lives with our extended network of contacts. This "digital lifestream" exists as a semi-ephemeral collection of status updates, blog posts, photos, videos, and links. We dip in-and-out of each other's lifestreams -- sampling the output in bits and pieces, not necessarily consuming it all. 

Here at Shufflebrain, we're working to game-ify your digital lifestream. We want you to have MORE FUN keeping up with your friends. Why just LOOK at photos, videos and status updates when you can PLAY brain-building puzzle games made from that content?  Our gaming engines choose the best, most relevant content created by your network to include in the puzzle games - so you always have something fresh, relevant, and brain-healthy to play. 

As a busy working Mom, I've dreamed of having a feed of quick-to-play games that help me stay in touch with people I care about - AND have the one-armed-bandit thrill of connecting with people online. Our first game, Photograb, is a step in that direction. We're excited about taking the next steps -- stay tuned for some exciting announcements, coming soon. :-) 

I'll be speaking on a panel at SXSW this year: Strong Gaming Communities: Text vs. Speech. We'll be looking at best practices and lessons learned for suing text vs speech in gaming communities like Everquest, WOW, Second Life, and There.com. The other panelists are experienced and insightful; it should be a lively and informative session. I'm looking forward to being part of it - come by and say hello if you're around!

I'm looking forward to learning a lot at SXSW -- in sessions, panels, get-togethers, and late-night drinking sessions :-) 

Send me an email (amyjokim at gmail dot com) if you wanna meetup. I'd love to connect with folks who are doing interesting things in the "games meets social media" space. 

Saving the World Through Game Design

I was inspired by Jane McGonigal's New Yorker talk on Saving the World Through Game Design. Like Shufflebrain, Jane is designing and championing games that embrace the real world. I particularly like her thinking about the "economy of engagement":

• satisfying work to do
• the experience of being good at something
• time spent with people we like
• the chance to be part of something bigger

These ideas capture the mechanisms that keep people involved in MMOs -- and in a good work situation as well. It's no wonder so many people are intrigued with the idea of applying an MMO framework to getting work done.

However, MMOs and jobs -- and Jane's ARG games -- are time-intensive experiences. I'm VERY interested in how these ideas apply to lightweight social games that are quick to play and accessible to people with limited free time -- AKA a busy working Mom, like me. Or like the millions of casual game players who can take a few minutes a day to play a fun game.

Any thoughts about this? Do you know of any lightweight casual games that offer a satisfying "economy of engagment" without the overhead and grind of an MMO?

 

Do Social Networks Change our Brains?

There's an interesting discussion going on about the brain-changing effects of social networking, especially on kids. A British neuroscientist, Lady Greenfield (professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln college, Oxford)  claimed that Facebook is "infantalizing" kids' brains. She makes some good points about reward systems and brain plasticity:

"The sheer compulsion of reliable and almost immediate reward is being linked to similar chemical systems in the brain that may also play a part in drug addiction. So we should not underestimate the 'pleasure' of interacting with a screen when we puzzle over why it seems so appealing to young people."

I completely agree -- feedback systems are powerful drivers of behavior, and social networks provide almost constant feedback with variable reward size - AKA the classic "one-armed bandit" variable reinforcement  schedule that diabolically addictive. She continues:

"It is hard to see how living this way on a daily basis will not result in brains, or rather minds, different from those of previous generations. We know that the human brain is exquisitely sensitive to the outside world."

She's right -- we are HIGHLY adaptable creatures. Our brains are wired differently than our ancestors, because we grew up in a different world. Books, telephones, movies, TV, and video games have dramatically changed the entertainment and communications landscape for humans - and inevitably shaped our brains.

Our kids are growing up with social networks -- not to mention a dizzying variety of compelling computer games. Kids often communicate as fluidly online as they do in person. For them, it's not about whether you're online or F2F, it's all part of the flow of communicating, socializing, and staying in touch.

Which brings us to this post by Sarah Lacy on why Social Networks Are Good for the Kids  In refuting Lady Greenfield's conclusions, Sarah points out:

...like a lot of people who don’t actually use these sites, she’s missing a fundamental shift from Web 1.0 chat room days to Web 2.0 social networks: Real identity. We no longer “go to the Internet” to interact with some shadowy user name where we pretend to be someone we’re not. Ok, maybe people on Second Life do. But sites like Facebook and Twitter are more about extending your real identity and relationships online. That’s what makes them so addictive: The little endorphin rushes from reconnecting with an old friend, the ability to passively stay in touch with people you care about but don’t have the time to call everyday.

Bingo. That's the unpredictable payoff of social networks - you never know who's going to show up next, or connect with you, or post an intriguing status update or photo. SNS's keep you lightly connected to a larger group of people, and enable you to stay in touch via a shared digital lifestream of status updates, photos, videos, notes, and affiliations. You get to know a different side to people - and when you see them in person, you have more context for what's going on.

Whether it's movies, TV, videogames, slot machines, or even books, humans will always compelled AND shaped by new technologies. Some people will abuse new technologies - that's a given. Check out the cheap slots in Vegas, or the sad stories from WOW widows, or neglected convalescent patients drooling in front of an always-on TV, to see that phenomenon in action.

As a parent - and former Neuroscientist - I embrace new technology knowing full well that it will shape our brains. How could it not? We're born to adapt -- and our technologies are an increasingly big part of our environment. Rather than bemoaning this inevitable fact, I think it's more forward-thinking and practical to embrace our brain plasticity, and learn how to use the technoligies in a healthy, life-enhancing way.

From destinations to distributed network

I really enjoyed reading this fascinating article about Why Reuters Left Second Life. The author, Eric Krangel, captured EXACTLY the reason why I grew tired of developing virtual worlds.

The very things that most appeal to Second Life's hardcore enthusiasts are either boring or creepy for most people: Spending hundreds of hours of effort to make insignificant amounts of money selling virtual clothes, experimenting with changing your gender or species, getting into random conversations with strangers from around the world, or having pseudo-nonymous sex (and let's not kid ourselves, sex is a huge draw into Second Life). As part of walking my "beat," I'd get invited by sources to virtual nightclubs, where I'd right-click the dancefloor to send my avatar gyrating as I sat at home at my computer. It was about as fun as watching paint dry.

Virtual worlds (and especially gaming worlds) are great sources of entertainment. They're immersive destinations where you go to escape from your everyday life. And immersive escapism -- via books, movies, TV, and games --  is often what entertainment is all about. 

At Shufflebrain, we're creating a different type of gaming experience: lightweight, distributed mini-games that connect with everyday life by using photos, videos, feeds, and  status updates from you and your friends. Our vision is to turn your digital lifestream into an ongoing series of puzzle games that build your brain - AND deepen your social connections.