This document provides an introduction to the #Playful10 conference. It discusses the concept of gamapocalypse and how play has evolved from physical toys and bricks to digital experiences. It notes that while new technologies allow for more play possibilities, not all uses enhance happiness. The document calls for continued iteration to guide the future of play.

1. #Playful10
AN introduction

2. Toby Barnes
@tobybarnes
@wearemudlark

3. Mudlark
www.wearemudlark.com

4. Transmedia
Cross-platform
Communications
Engagement
Post digital
Game Developer
Web Experiences
Hi-Def Prototypes
WE MAKE STUFF

6. avatar

7. Copyright & IP owned by Chromaroma Ltd.

11. #Playful10
AN introduction

16. So..

18. Gamapocalypse
is all our fault,

19. Well, yours.
But we started it.

20. Iain Tait,
Tom Armitage,
Kars Alfrink,
Matt Biddulph,
Matt Irvine Brown,
Roo Reynolds
Eric Zimmerman

22. LegoPhoto app!

28. So...

31. “the home that has
no floor upon which
games may be
played falls so far
short of happiness”

32. “The men of
tomorrow will gain
new strength from
nursery floors.”

33. “How utterly we
despise the silly little
bricks of the
toyshops!”

34. They are too small to make a decent home for even the
poorest lead soldiers, even if there were hundreds of them,
and there are never enough, never nearly enough; even if
you take one at a time and lay it down and say, "This is a
house," even then there are not enough. We see rich
people, rich people out of motor cars, rich people beyond
the dreams of avarice, going into toyshops and buying
these skimpy, sickly, ridiculous pseudo-boxes of bricklets,
because they do not know what to ask for, and the
toyshops are just the merciless mercenary enemies of youth
and happiness—so far, that is, as bricks are concerned.
Their unfortunate under-parented offspring mess about with
these gifts, and don't make very much of them, and put
them away;

35. “and you see their
consequences in after
life in the weakly-
conceived villas and silly
suburbs that people
have built all round big
cities.”

36. Not all play is
created equal

37. Because you can,
don’t mean you
should

40. So let’s keep
iterating.

41. Anyway.

42. A Kōan for the future of Play.
A kōan (pronounced /ˈkoʊ.ɑːn/; Chinese: ; pinyin: gōng'àn; Korean: gong'an; Vietnamese:
công án) is a fundamental part of the history and lore of Zen Buddhism. It consists of a story,
dialogue, question, or statement, the meaning of which cannot be understood by rational thinking
but may be accessible through intuition. One widely known kōan is "Two hands clap and there is a
sound; what is the sound of one hand?" (oral tradition attributed to Hakuin Ekaku, 1686–1769,
considered a reviver of the kōan tradition in Japan). The word koan, the name by which practice is
known to the West, comes from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters ( ).