Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Facebook page, how do you keep them focused on the virtual meeting? Immersion is the key word here. Break
through the “fourth wall,” the space between the presenter and the audience, and invite attendees to enter the
entire space visually and aurally. Ask them to respond to your speaker's presentation by voting, questions, or
moving around the space. By immersing the audience in the presentation as a collaborative event, by putting
them in a place where they can move and even make themselves into part of the presentational information,
you will encourage a much higher level of engagement and participation from your audience.
For example, imagine your next physical world business meeting being held on a gymnasium loor instead
of a conference room. All the team members are standing around the basketball center court circle. Every
time your boss wants you to report or comment on something, he or she tosses a basketball at you. When you
want to make a comment about a concurrent discussion, you have to roll a ball into the middle of the circle.
If you agree with what a team member is saying, you step into the circle and prepare to receive the ball,
which your team member will toss to you, allowing you to comment on the team member's discussion. If you
disagree with the idea being discussed, you step out of the circle. To reenter the circle and make a comment,
you are required to go to the ball rack and get another ball to roll into the center. If the speaker steps in and
picks the ball up, you have the loor to air your opinions.
This example has been described to make the following points: (1) Game-like design of a meeting space
enhances communication and participation; (2) the physical activity required (with your real body or your
avatar's body) to engage with the information being shared sharpens your attention span; and (3) each team
member's opinion on the topic is immediately known by all and shared collectively in a visual way.
Breaking your design perception away from the mindset that meeting rooms must look like their real-space
counterparts allows you to invent new usage patterns for a virtual space and new ways to communicate and
engage. In 2007, Drew Harry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab designed a non-
literal conference room in Second Life that looked like a football ield gradated in color from orange to
green [8]. Those members of the meeting who agreed with the topic discussed were to congregate in the
green end of the ield, where it said “Agree,” and those who disagreed were to be found at the orange end,
where it was marked “Disagree.” Various other tools, such as a task list and dashboard, allowed for the
delegation of tasks to be assigned and accepted by participants and for the moderator to change the overall
look and resultant purpose of the environment by selecting new textures for the loor. Images from Drew's
designs are shown in Figure 9.1.
Fundamentally, the level of participation, when supported by the environment, increases when the environ-
ment interacts with the participants. Interactivity, when it is not complex or distracting, engages the attendees,
asks them to communicate, and encourages memorable experiences.
9.2 PRESENTING AND COLLABORATING ON IDEAS IN A VIRTUAL WORLD
Let's time leap from the prehistoric era to ancient Alexandria, in the time of the famous female philosophy
and mathematics professor Hypatia (ca. AD 350-370). Before her untimely death [9], this polymath taught
the people of Athens about Platonic philosophy in a public space, called the agora, meaning gathering place
or assembly space. Agoras were used throughout the ancient world for all kinds of meetings and political
discussion. It was in the ancient agora of Athens that the concept and practice of democracy began.
We still need these places; in fact, we probably need them more now than ever before. As our capacity for
communication extends itself across the globe and greater amounts of ideation low through the Metaverse,
we must have spaces where these concepts can be presented, discussed, and acted on. This virtual agora,
this Ideagora, should be a place that exists without temporal restrictions (open 24/7) and is accessible to all
levels of ability. It should embody the four affordances mentioned in Section 9.1.2, and it should encourage
the following activities: serious games and storytelling.
