1. What do games teach us about
creative culture?
Andrew Phelps
Professor & Founding Director
School of Interactive Games & Media
College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
School of Interactive Games & Media
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
igm.rit.edu | www.rit.edu

2. Hi, I’m Andy, and I Make Games.
Andy approximately 1978-1981.
School of Interactive Games & Media
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
igm.rit.edu | www.rit.edu

3. RIT HISTORY of GAMES EDUCATION
DEVELOPMENT
Winner XNA GS Innovation Award 2007
HONORED REPEATEDLY BY MSR and others
NATIONAL REPUTATION of EXCELLENCE
INCREDIBLE RESEARCH RECORD
NEW EXCITING NATIONAL PROJECTS EVERY YEAR
Picture the Impossible
Just Press Play
Preserving Virtual Worlds
IGDA GameSauce Challenge Top 10
PAX 10 Challenge Top 10
NETWORK OF ALUMNI MAKING
THE GAMES YOU PLAY
Halo
Transformers
Guitar Hero
Spongebob
Several Kinect® Titles…
School of Interactive Games & Media
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
igm.rit.edu | www.rit.edu

4. OUR GRADUATES ARE CURRENTLY
CREATING THINGS AT:
Microsoft X-BOX & MGS Artificial Life
Electronic Arts Northrup Grumman Undersea Systems
Vicarious Visions United States Military and the CIA
Red Eye Studios Booz Allen Hamilton
SquareEnix IBM Odopod
Sony Computer Entertainment Lockheed Martin
High Moon Public Broadcasting Station (PBS)
Volition Nickelodeon MTV
Blizzard Entertainment Cynergy Systems Inc.
Edios Google
Activision mySpace / Fox Interactive
Big Huge Games …and many more!
Zynga Valve
School of Interactive Games & Media
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
igm.rit.edu | www.rit.edu

5. Alumni Example: Katie Linendoll
Katie Linendoll is an Emmy award-winning TV
personality and technology expert, appearing
on CNN and the CBS Early Show and regularly
contributing her expertise to magazines like
People, People Style Watch, Marie Claire,
Shape and Fitness. Prior to working on-air,
Linendoll gained behind-the-scenes experience
with ESPN and won an Emmy as Associate
Producer for SportsCenter. Knowing what a
producer wants and what it takes to create a
show helped her transition to her new role in
front of the camera, where she develops and
creates all her own segments. Linendoll also
co-hosted the Emmy nominated series, 'We
Mean Business' on A&E and has blogged for
CLASS OF ‘05 Dell and Oprah.com. She has also worked on
projects with AOL, Gizmodo and HP. She
recently agreed to a one year deal with Lincoln
and signed as a spokesperson for Polaroid, and
just started her own show on SPIKE TV.
School of Interactive Games & Media
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
igm.rit.edu | www.rit.edu

6. Alumni Example: Josh Gilpatrick
Josh was a GDD
student who went to
work at Microsoft
Games Studios.
Built the ‘monkey see,
monkey do’ mechanic
for Kinect now in
CLASS OF ‘09 Sports & Kinectimals
School of Interactive Games & Media
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
igm.rit.edu | www.rit.edu

7. First, are gamers creative?
• ‘Learning’ the game?
• Training a response? / Cultivating a response?
• Isn’t it just ‘discovery of a rule-set’?
• Optimization?
School of Interactive Games & Media
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
igm.rit.edu | www.rit.edu

8. “Take for example the basic notion of a quest.
Within a typical MMOG, a quest provides a
description of a task to be performed, basic
information about what resources are needed, and a
reward to be received when the task is completed.
One of the key traits of a questing disposition is the
willingness to find, analyze, and evaluate resources
needed to complete a task. One’s disposition toward
the world is characterized by the belief that if you try
hard enough you will find what you need along the
way, that the world itself will afford the resources
that are needed to solve it. Accordingly, a quest
disposition is one which is tied to resources and
which focuses on the contingency and possibility, but
also which demands a high level of situational
awareness.” – Doug Thomas and Seely Brown USC
School of Interactive Games & Media
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
igm.rit.edu | www.rit.edu

9. How do we explain
• Rocket Jumping?
• Corpse writing?
• Wall Hacking?
• Gnome Scouting?
• …and several other forms of emergent play?
_What seems obvious in hindsight_
_is not predictable_
School of Interactive Games & Media
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
igm.rit.edu | www.rit.edu

10. Engagement
• Obviously, a lot has now been written about
engagement, flow, motivation, etc.
School of Interactive Games & Media
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
igm.rit.edu | www.rit.edu

11. Flow as Game Addiction
• In an irony of ironies, the element that is often
misrepresented as “responsible for game
addiction” is the very same element that
makes games a powerful catalyst for learning,
and which forms the basis for scientific inquiry
• Human beings are “happy” solving challenges
and feeling rewarded.
School of Interactive Games & Media
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
igm.rit.edu | www.rit.edu

12. Creativity
• “enjoyability replaces usability” – M. Gough,
Adobe Systems
• Directed replaces dictated
• Our “10,000 hours” doesn’t necessarily
produce anything out of the ordinary, but
“playing around” often does
School of Interactive Games & Media
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
igm.rit.edu | www.rit.edu

13. What we used to say about computers
• Once you’ve unlocked the power of the desk-top
computer, you’ll be using Apple in ways you
never dreamed of. You don’t want to be limited
by the availability of pre-programmed cartridges.
You’ll want a computer, like Apple, that you can
also program yourself. … The more you and your
students learn about computers, the more your
imagination will demand. So you’ll want a
computer that can grow with you as your skills
and experience grow. – original Apple ][ literature, courtesy of Ian Bogost,
GaTech
School of Interactive Games & Media
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
igm.rit.edu | www.rit.edu

14. The Assessment Trap
• One of the biggest challenges is assessment. A lot of times
we are asked to prove the ‘effectiveness’ of a given title or
experience by comparing it to a more traditional measure
using a standardized instrument. Educational games are a
prime example here. And if you aren’t careful, you fall
victim to organizing everything around the assessment
mechanism – you start off designing a game to teach a
mathematical concept, and produce a game that makes
someone very adept at taking a standardized test about
that concept, but not necessarily better at actually
employing that concept in their own work or study.
School of Interactive Games & Media
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
igm.rit.edu | www.rit.edu

15. The Sheeple Trap
• And… the continual challenge of allowing for
creativity and gameful solutions: players are
smart, motivated, and engaged (if you built a
good game). That means they will do things
you didn’t expect or design for: often times I
see folks trying to account for all possible
actions or paths, when a more flexible and
less-detailed approach might be the better
way to go in addressing the content.
School of Interactive Games & Media
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
igm.rit.edu | www.rit.edu

16. 10 years of Games@RIT
School of Interactive Games & Media
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
igm.rit.edu | www.rit.edu

17. Thank You & Questions
andy@mail.rit.edu
School of Interactive Games & Media
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences
Rochester Institute of Technology
igm.rit.edu | www.rit.edu

18. Useful Links:
www.seriousplayconference.com
www.seriousgamesdirectory.com
www.seriousgamesassociation.com
Contact:
sbohle@seriousgamesassociation.com