Everything is Multiplayer Now Playful 2008, Conway Hall.

A short session about what “multiplayer” means for games, and the web, and all manner of things that aren’t games, and what the many approaches to ‘multiplayer’ are. And, in conclusion, that acknowledgement that everything always was multiplayer anyway.

Read the entire talk online.

If Gamers Ran The World Gamecity ’08 and later at St Paul’s School.

Half an hour, talking to a pair of mixed audiences, of gamers, students, and developers alike, about what skills playing games teaches you about the rest of the world. I chose to focus on an interesting thought experiment, rather than talking about social software as I had done before; as a result, it’s a bit of a curveball but there was some good thinking in it, I think, and I’m proud of the outcome.

Read the entire talk online.

Playing Together: What Games Can Learn From Social Software NLGD and Develop, Summer 2008

A forty-five minute presentation at two games conferences about what games can learn from the social web. A lot of talks at web conferences had covered what the web can learn from games, and I felt it was time to look at what genuinely social gaming might look like. It’s a fun talk, and I’m really interested in some of the ideas that emerged from writing it.

Read the entire talk online.

A series of Tubes Interesting 2007, 16th June 2007

A twenty-minute talk about pipes, tubes, and the joys of physical infrastructure, which I delievered at Russell Davies’ Interesting 2007. Notes are attached at the bottom of each slide.

Download PDF (4mb)

The Uncanny Valet Reboot 9, 31st May 2007

A discussion of manners, behaviour, and what they can teach interaction design.

Download PDF

Ruby on Rails from the other side of the tracks LRUG, 8th August 2006.

A 20-minute chat about how to get client-side-developers, and even designers, involved in the process of making applications with Rails – helping them get involved in the templating process. It then diverges into a client-side perspective on Rails, looking in particular at issues around Javascript and Ajax, and XHTML testing. Because of its slide-heavy nature, it’s fairly self explanatory, but obviously you’ll miss out on some of the discussion around the talk (which was excellent).

Download PDF (1.5mb)

Telling Stories: What (Social) Software can learn from Homer, Dickens, and Comic Books Reboot 8, Copenhagen, 2nd June 2006

Download PDF (832kb)

This PDF is the original text I spoke from, with some tidying and correction; that should explain the vernacular, conversational tone.

From Paddles to Pads: Is Controller Design Killing Creativity in Videogames? O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference 2006, San Diego, 9th March 2006

A talk I delivered at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in 2006, on how the devices we play games with affects the games we can play (amongst other things).

Endnotes