The Game-Changing Game—a practical way to craft the future

“Crafting the Future” was the title of the tenth conference of the European Academy of Design (EAD10) last April in Gothenburg, Sweden. In my article I submitted The Game-Changing Game as a practical way to craft the future. I used the qualifier ‘practical’ for two reasons:

• To hint that ways for crafting the future that do not have provisions for changing our aging or worse institutions (or more generally societal systems) are only theoretical
• To point out that The Game-Changing Game undertakes to craft the future by synergizing the career and other goals of its players with future concerns

The Game-Changing Game was crafted at the Knowledge Federation workshop in Palo Alto, California, last July, and presented at the Palo Alto Future Salon. In Palo Alto I began the lecture by zooming in on a pair of theatre masks: “I am giving this lecture under a double identity”, I said. “As  Knowledge Federation’s evangelist, I give myself the license to dramatize by pointing at a range of fascinating opportunities that The Game-Changing Game will open up. But as an academic researcher I am an algorithm theorist. Your challenge is to see through the passionate talk of the former to the sober work of the latter. What I will be presenting is in essence an algorithm of a new kind—(a prototype of) a general or generic way to change systems.”

EAD10 offered a natural opportunity to write up and publish The Game-Changing Game description; and to extend an invitation to the design community to take part in designing and playing The Game. Here are some highlights.

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The Game-Changing Game is not a game in the conventional sense, but a game-changing way to live a life and pursue a career. As “a prototype solution to global problems”, The Game substitutes high-achievement career opportunities for strife and control. […]

Imagine that on a walk in a forest you meet a fairy who wants to grant you a career wish: Whatever you may wish to accomplish, or dream might be accomplished, will be granted! What would you choose to contribute to the world? What sort of success would you choose for yourself ?

This was how we began our introduction to The Game-Changing Game at the Bay Area Future Salon. When the participants stated their aspirations, we introduced The Game-Changing Game as a loom that can weave everyone’s most audacious positive strivings into projects capable of bringing them to fruition.

Its principle of operation is described in the article.