Decode Global and Small Media’s Creative Lab in London
Open Source Software – A Source of Inspiration
Linux is one of the greatest examples of what can happen when an industry supports open innovation and collaborative development processes. In 20 years, the operating system has grown to power everything from the New York Stock Exchange to mobile phones and consumer devices thanks to the collaboration of thousands of developers contributing to the platform.
In comparison, the video games industry has been for many years a locked space where innovation happens behind the closed doors. New entrants were often rare, and the market was restricted to a few big companies. However, a shift is happening. It is now easier than ever before for small studios to break into the market. The emergence of mobile phones and tablets, in addition to new, lower cost development tools has positively contributed to this change in the industry. Yet despite this positive shift, development still predominantly happens behind closed doors.
Drawing inspiration from the collaborative model of open source software development, we at Decode Global, a Montreal-based social impact games company, believe this can change. Who says that great games cannot come from an open collaborative development environment? We believe the greatest impact games can have is through opening the doors to co-creation and collaboration in which working with different partners is key.
Our Vision – Collaborative Learning and Non-typical Actors in the Arena
Our vision is inspired by the openness of the software industry where developers can learn, collaborate, and innovate on what already exists. In fact, we see games as a result of collaborative research and group learning where the involvement of a range of actors is vital for lasting impact.
Our approach consists of bringing youth, game design teams, university researchers, and social activists together to develop games in an open lab. The inspiration for our first game, Get Water!, came from our international fellowship program which brought five young people from all over the world to Montreal for 3-6 months.
The production of the game came from our team working with the initial concepts and prototype from the fellows, and through partnering with the Technoculture, Art and Games Centre at Concordia University. The experimentation, open dialogue, global youth perspectives, and the collaborative design space were all crucial to the game development process.
Our Approach Illustrated – London Workshop
Decode Global and Small Media’s Creative Lab
One of our core activities is to host Creative Labs to educate citizens and social impact organizations on how to incorporate games into their current outreach and engagement activities. Our Creative Labs are perhaps the best illustration of the co-creation and transfer of knowledge potential we envision in developing games for social impact.
This June, we partnered with Small Media, a London based organization specialized in the diffusion of media in closed societies. We looked at tough social issues in difficult contexts, such as repression and censorship, to explore how we could highlight these issues through new platforms of media diffusion. By gathering human rights experts and game designers in a workshop environment, we fostered a two-way learning exchange where both knowledge on games as tool for change and expertise on human rights could be shared and thought as complementary forces. This kind of configuration promotes a free flow of ideas facilitating the transfer of knowledge and creative thinking we hope to spur in a collaborative environment.
Through this inclusive approach, we are setting an example on how leading people in different sectors can work collaboratively and efficiently to achieve great results. Participants discovered how to appropriately tell their stories through fun and interactive games, opening the door to great game ideas. In the weeks following the Creative Lab, we helped Small Media refine the game ideas that stood out, to help their idea advance to development stage.
Moving Forward – Setting a Trend
At Decode Global, our mission is to make great games that raise awareness and drive social change. It is through co-creation and collaboration that we see games generating the greatest impact. By hosting more Creative Labs, we’re pushing for greater openness in an industry that has previously been closed to new entrants and to new ways of working. If such open collaborative processes are possible in the software industry, we believe that a great deal of open innovation can also happen in the games industry, and are enthusiastic about its potential to yield great games!
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