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This article was taken from the April 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.
Wired asks a selection of designers, writers and business types for their thoughts on this month's big question: "What is the future of entertainment/play?"
Jane McGonigal
Games designer; author, Reality is Broken "With scientific studies being published on the positive impacts of gaming, we can expect to see games, from
Call of Duty to Angry Birds to
Minecraft, labelled with their benefits, such as 'improved decision-making', 'better spatial intelligence' and 'emotional resilience'."
Tim O'Reilly
Founder and CEO, O'Reilly Media "The maker movement is engaging kids and adults in controlling the physical world with sensors, robotics, 3D manufacturing and, soon, with displays such as Google Glass. What could be more exciting than flying like a bird while seeing through the eyes of a drone that you have built?"
Alisa Chumachenko
Founder and <span class="s1">CEO, GameInsight "The future of play is tablets.
NARR8 is an app that functions as a digital content channel aggregating cutting-edge, interactive content in a wide range of genres including motion comics, interactive novels and non-fiction.
Our behaviour, our OS, has been moulded and forever changed by mobile tech."
Andrew Blake
Director, Microsoft Research Cambridge "Virtual environments will take centre stage: room-sized displays allow you to enjoy movies in the company of your friends; natural user interaction will make the spatial relationship between viewers richer; communicating, shopping and browsing will be drawn into one shared, virtual environment."
Alex Fleetwood
Director, Hide&Seek Productions "There's a desire to find entertainment formats where gazing at the screen is less dominant.
We design real-life, social games such as 99 Tiny Games for the Mayor of London. We're exploring how screens can mediate social play: games with computers in them, not the other way round."
Diana Moldavsky
CRO, ZeptoLab; <span class="s1">creator, Cut the Rope "The future is accessibility. Games will become more universal and portable. As smartphone and tablet penetration grows, entertainment will need to be pick-up-and-play experiences that people can enjoy for any amount of time -- whether that's two minutes in a lift or two hours on a plane."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
