UXP_FB_Logo copy.jpg

News

Gamification is broken

As game designer Adrian Hon argues in his entertaining book "You've Been Played", the key difference between Mary Poppins and many gamification applications, is that Poppins was interested in improving the lives of her charges, while most of the companies behind gamification apps are emphatically not interested in the wellbeing of their users.

Read More
Groping In The Dark: Intimacy In Nyctophobia

Emma Leigh Waldron defines the term "Mediated intimacy" as intimacy that is "Given specific, shape, direction, intensity, or meaning" through a mediating practice, such as playing a game.5 Mediated intimacy describes how the flow of affect is oriented through play and how intimacy functions as a vector to describe the relationship between bodies.

Read More
Esports are being taught in schools. Could they give students useful workplace skills?

Japan has just opened its first esports high school, and education publisher Pearson has worked with the British Esports Federation to develop the world's first esports qualification. "Esports is not [sitting] in your bedroom playing on your own in the dark eating crisps; it's teams of people playing against teams of people in a competitive environment," Tom Dore of the British Esports Federation told website Which School Advisor.

Read More