New frontiers in futures games: leveraging game sector developments

Abstract

In the last decade, games have grown into a dominant and highly diverse form of media, characterized by a number of transformations in the game sector that offer new opportunities for games in a futures context. These developments include changes in the cultural presence, the production and dissemination of games, which in turn have led to changes in their content and forms. This paper investigates to what extend such game sector developments have been utilized by games in a futures context, and building on this analysis, where the key opportunities are to leverage game sector developments to advance the field of futures games. Connections are made between game sector developments on the one hand and alternate reality games, massively multiplayer games, experiential futures games, online video games, game design engines and game jams on the other. Key recommendations resulting from this analysis include researching new player bases, adapting existing games, blurring the lines between commercial games and futures games, developing new futures games design and dissemination infrastructure, integrating futures games and present action, and organizing new funding mechanisms for futures games.