KGC 2005 Opening Reception

Today Erik Bethke toured me around some of Seoul and his GoPets offices. And afterwards, we went to the opening reception for KGC 2005. There were a lot of government folks there, and I spent the evening sitting in between the guy who made Ragnarok and the General Director of the Minstry of Culture and Tourism. I signed a lot of books, because every person who came to the reception got a copy of the Korean edition of Theory of Fun in their welcoming packet. I spent much of the time discussing how games fit into human culture with the General Director, who is worried that the games programs in Korea are turning out lots of good programmers, but no designer/developers who treat games as a medium of art and expression.

I, along with a bunch of other folks, was asked to give some opening remarks. Here’s my rough approximation of what I said as I winged it:

First of all, let me say what an honor it is to be here. I’m just a game designer, so getting to have dinner with high level government officials is a real treat.

The question posed was, what is the future of games? Predicting the future is hard, though. If it were easy, history would be very different, I suspect. Sure, I can point to things that are on the wall, or point to trends that we see today, and maybe extrapolate out, but that would mostly be telling you about how things already are.

Really, when we look to the future, we have to think about what our beliefs and hopes and dreams are, and go from there. So this is what I believe:

I believe that games are important.

I believe that there are only a few ways that children learn: from stories, from parents, and from play.

I believe that games teach us in ways that other things cannot. We learn of teamwork, of coordination.

I believe that games, especially online games, bring us together. There is no better evidence of that than the people in this room.

It’s such an honor to be here because the people in this room are people who take games seriously. You are all people who believe in games, and in communication, because we are all here to exchange ideas. Games give us models of the world, something we can test assumptions with, try new ways of doing things, and create communities that cross boundaries, cultures, and even national borders. As we learn from games and from each other, maybe we’ll be able to better predict the future, just a little bit.

So those are the things that I believe. Again, it’s an honor to be here among all these people — all of you — who also believe in the importance of games. I might not be sure of what the future will be, but this gathering, and these beliefs, give me confidence and hope in it. Thank you very much for having me here.

Nobody seemed to notice that I was wearing sneakers with my suit. After all, I had changed into the blazer and button-down shirt in the basement parking lot of the hotel. I wasn’t gonna lug shoes with me as we walked Seoul!