Games People Play with Alice Taylor, Kevin Slavin, Matt Adams, Dan Hon and Kati London.
This session features an overview on the current and future state of gaming by Kevin Slavin of Area/Code, followed by a discussion of experts moderated by Alice Taylor of Channel 4.
The panelists include Kati London of Area/Code, Matt Adams of Blast Theory and Dan Hon of Six to Start.
Covering location, alternative and augmented "playful experiences," the panel discusses audiences, numbers, content and budgets.
Who is playing what, where, when and why?
Bio
Matt Adams
Matt Adams makes performances, installations, games and interactive artworks. He co-founded Blast Theory in 1991, a group renowned for its multidisciplinary approach pioneering the use of new technologies within performance contexts.
The group has used interactive pressure pad systems triggered by audience members, video and audio streaming, and more recently, the convergence of collaborative virtual environments and mobile devices. Since 1997, the group has collaborated with the Mixed Reality Laboratory at the University of Nottingham. Works such as Desert Rain, Can You See Me Now? and Uncle Roy All Around You have broken new ground as complex mixed reality projects combining urban game play and narrative using GPRS and 3G. Since 2000, Blast Theory has developed cross platform works for BBC Fictionlab, Channel 4 and BBC Interactive.
He co-curated the Screen series of video works for Live Culture at Tate Modern in 2003 and curated the Games and War season at the ICA in London in 2003.
Dan Hon
Dan Hon is CEO of Six to Start, an award winning entertainment production company founded with his brother, Adrian, in September 2007.
Six to Start's first project, We Tell Stories, for Penguin, re-imagined how a publisher could adapt to producing internet natvie fiction. We Tell Stories was received to great critical and commercial acclaim, winning the awards for both Innovation and Best of Show at South by Southwest Interactive 2009.
Prior to co-founding Six to Start with his brother, Hon was COO at the Accel Partners and Index Ventures backed start-up Mind Candy, where he worked on the award-winning alternate reality game Perplex City. He is a law graduate from Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge University, and has an MSc in Software Engineering from the University of Liverpool.
Hon has spoken extensively on ARGs, transmedia, cross-platform entertainment and social gaming and has served as a jury member for the BAFTA Videogames and RTS Education Awards. A winner of the 4Talent Multiplatform award for new talent, Dan has most recently spoken at The Media Festival, b.tween 2009, Hello Digital 2008, Sheffield Doc/Fest 2008, WildScreen, South by Southwest 2009, 2008 and 2007, and the London Games Festival.
Kati London
Kati London designs, develops and builds opportunities for interacting with others whether that be for people and plants, residents of Gaza City and Tel-Aviv, or gamers playing tag with tiger sharks in the Great Barrier Reef.
Her collaborative projects have been featured in the Museum of Science & Industry, the Dutch Electronic Arts Festival, and the Design Museum of London. She frequently speaks on digital/physical hybridization at conferences like Burda Media's Digital Life Design Conference, The Institute for the Future, and is on the board of O'Reilly's Emerging Technology Conference.
London is currently the VP and senior producer at Area/Code Games where she works with clients that range from: the BBC, the Carnegie Institute/Girls Math and Science Project, Disney Imagineering, the UK's Department for Transport, Nike, Discovery Channel, CBS, MTV, and the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
Kevin Slavin
Kevin Slavin is the Managing Director and co-Founder of area/code. He has worked in corporate communications for technology-based clients for 13 years, including IBM, Compaq, Dell, TiVo, Time/Warner Cable, Microsoft, Wild Tangent and Qwest Wireless.
For over five years, Slavin was the Vice President, Digital Markets, at SS+K in New York, which is partially owned by the Hollywood talent agency CAA (Creative Artists Agency). Previously, he served in similar roles at Chiat/Day and DDB, as Creative Director for the New York office of DDB's digital unit.
Slavin has lectured at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and the Parsons school of design, and has written for various publications on games and game culture. His work has received honors from the AIGA, the One Show, and the Art Directors Club, and he has exhibited internationally, including the Frankfurt Museum fuer Moderne Kunst.
Alice Taylor
Alice Taylor commissions cross-platform educational content for 14-19 year olds, aiming to get useful, life-helpful information to teens via their most favoured platforms and formats.
She specializes in videogames and virtual worlds, and Channel 4 Education's 2009 slate includes Routes, a cross-platform game tackling DNA and genetic testing, Smokescreen, a cross-platform game on the subject of privacy, online security and surveillance, and 1066 The Game, a web game depicting the events of the battles of 1066. Bow Street Runner, C4 Education's first game commission, won a Children's BAFTA in 2008.
Taylor was a judge for the 2006 & 2007 Independent Games Festival, the D&AD awards 2008, and IndieCade 2009. Alice founded the gamecentric blog Wonderland (www.wonderlandblog.com) and writes about gaming for sites and magazines, including The Guardian, New Statesman, and Kotaku.
She joined Channel 4 from BBC Worldwide, where she was Vice President, Digital Media for the USA's west coast operations.
Recreational or competitive activities that involve physical skill, intellectual acumen, and often luck (especially in the case of games of chance). Play is an integral part of human nature. Throughout history, humans have invented sporting and gaming activities as a means to socialize, to display skills and prowess, and to entertain or offer excitement. The earliest games may have been based on hunting and gathering activities. In modern times, with the emergence of professional sports, games continue to serve as physical and emotional outlets, as diversions, and as enrichments to daily life while also playing a pronounced economic role.
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