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Hello, [anon].  Thank you for agreeing to take part in this interview.  The interview is being recorded and like I said in the introductory email and all the information that I sent beforehand I will ask you a number of questions about the role of games in society, your perceptions, your understanding about certain dynamics relating to design, development, and the usage of games in different contexts.
So you don’t have to answer all of the questions, you can say no if you feel like it.  The data will be anonymised and then we will use it to illustrate, to basically look at certain themes or topics that are common to a number of interviews rather than one specific interview.  Are you okay to go ahead?
Sure, no problem.
The first topic I wanted to discuss with you, obviously let’s try and frame a bit the interview in your specific professional background which is important.  So can you give me a summary of your trajectory in the gaming industry, in general and the serious and applied gaming industry a bit more in particular?  Let’s start from that and then we will move on from there.
I would say my passion for gaming started early, I was making games as a young lad.  In 1986 I programmed my first game on the ZX Spectrum and sold it to the local computer shop, a rip off of Jet Set Willy.  My passion for art and culture as well as mathematics and physics and sciences are equal.  I don’t see the difference between humanities and engineering, they are just a continuation of the same thing.  So that sort of naturally led me to study architecture, where you combine the physicality of things, the way things look, with structure, the system, and the network.  All the while hacking at home and making games.  
So I graduated as an architect and actually immediately went and worked for a games company making AAA type games.  It didn’t last very long unfortunately being young, and then another opportunity came up which was to work for a large international architectural company and apply gaming technology to what they were doing.  Bearing in mind this is 1999.  I’m one of the only people who’s doing 3D and who’s doing games and is doing architecture, so it’s terribly exciting for architects to have somebody who understands architecture and games, mix them together.  And we did very big sites in real-time.  
Back then, again we’re talking twenty years ago more or less, five hundred buildings on a site that you could walk around, using gaming technology.  So I’d already started applying gaming technology in a way to what I was doing.  Then in 2001 I decided to set up my own company because I felt that there was more to games than what I’d done.  And I think there was a moment for me where I saw my brother, who’s a long younger than me, he’s twelve years younger than me, become really enthralled and engaged and really immersed in a game which I’d helped to build.  And he was spending a large amount of his time playing this game.  And to the detriment of his studies, he’s a very bright man, he’s actually doing a PhD in Computer Science now, but back then it was detrimental to him. 
And I had a moment where I just kind of saw my life as like, what am I doing?  I’m taking this young man’s brain and I’m just feeding him entertainment and he likes it and I’m good at it but what’s the point?  There’s got to be something in it, look what I’m doing to my own brother.  And I had a bit of a realisation that games had a much bigger role to play and this was around the year 2000.  So 2001 I just couldn’t contain it anymore, I thought, right, I’m going to set up a company.
I moonlighted whilst I worked as an international visualisation expert, for this large company, I moonlighted it at night and I would just at night work on Playgen.  And after a couple of years of building lots of prototypes and lots of things I decide that it was probably good enough to step out into the real world and quit my day job so to speak.  So in 2003 I started – I quite the other job and was working basically full-time in Playgen making games.  Initially for brands but then very quickly for the BBC and I got a large commission from the BBC doing Time Commanders, which was mixing together some of the world’s best multi-avatar, sort of the Rome Total War and bringing that to life.  
I did a TV show with history, using gaming technology to bring history to life.  Doing it accurately and  ourselves as a graphics supervisor.  Something that was using cutting edge technology and delivering in a game show real educational content around history and battle.  So I did a few of those series, I did the first two series.  And that was really interesting because then suddenly I was in a totally different playing field.  From there I’ve worked with larger clients, we’ve worked with a whole variety of clients now in all different sectors.  
Through a number of things that we had to do from a political – so I made a lot of games in a lot of different areas, I’ve probably made about sixty or seventy games in politics, in health, in security, in finance, in all sorts of things.  What I enjoy is take a topic and melt it together with game and game tech.  And game and game tech moves all the time, so our studio is continuously evolving.  After you’ve been running a studio for sixteen years every technology just— So we’ve seen technology come and go.  What’s interesting is there is now a lot more consumption of games than there used to be and they are much more part of everyday life than they were some time ago now.
The question for me always is, and the way I saw my role and I see my role, is I am the documentary maker, I don’t make The Simpsons anymore, I make the [0:07:45], they’re ancient history, I don’t write fiction anymore, I write factual books.  I don’t make entertainment games anymore, I make serious and applied games.  I take simulations and games and knock them together and help somebody understand something that they didn’t know about by putting them in the shoes, allowing them to play with the variables, allowing them to see the effects that they would have.  
And actually increasingly that’s moved from being person playing with machine and simulation to much more engaging people with people.  Because my work it took me to behaviour change, we did stuff with drink driving, with domestic violence, with abuse, and that all got very deep and then we did stuff for kids around health and attitude to sex and relationships.  And through those I’ve ended up more and more so focussing on building interactions and actually the latest – so then we went through this arc of creating platforms, gamified platforms and running experiments around gamified platforms.  It’s all quite interesting, what you really want is you want people to really care about each other, you want to reduce the friction and all of that kind of stuff.
I’ll stop you right there.  This has been great, great framing, great background, just to help with – I was actually quite struck by what you said about your perceptions about entertainment games and the experience of your brother playing and being sucked into that kind of experience and that kind of was the trigger that made you try and look elsewhere.  So I would like to explore a bit that kind of thing, because that is actually quite important in this project.  We are trying to look at the interface or the relationship, whatever you want to call it, between the games for entertainment and serious or applied games.  And whether that kind of distinction is meaningful, productive or whether it should be reconsidered in some way or somehow.  What actually do you think is wrong with entertainment games?  And what are – can you expand a bit on that perception you just mentioned and the kind of – your reaction to that?
Look, we’re talking about categories.  I don’t think this is something right or wrong here.  If you’ve got a list of categories you might have a category under which it says entertainment.  You might another category under which it says history.  You might have another category under which it says science and nature.  You might have different categories.  We are talking about categories and there’s nothing particularly wrong with anything.  Entertainment games are difficult to make well and they fulfil the roles that they fulfil.  Just like entertainment films, just like entertainment programmes.  Just like books that are read for entertainment.  They are just the category, it just seems to be the biggest category.  
And I like to wave the flag for all the other categories like history and science and nature and understanding people.  I see it in that way, I don’t see it as there’s something wrong with them, I see it as that’s a category.  There’s many different kinds of things and if – because games can be transformative and I’ve seen this.  They can really get somebody to kind of go, oh right, I get it, it’s a bit more complicated than I thought.  They kind of allow you at a distance to observe something and become aware of it much more so than if you just read it or had it read to you.  So it’s that playing with it, I think it’s the simulation element.  I think that’s critical.
We have a role – this is a slight diversion but when books started to become popular in Victorian times there were literally people going round – and this is entertainment books and fiction books – people going round and saying, my God, this new thing that’s come into our houses, these little boxes that people are just sitting and staring at them and they’re not talking to each other.  Okay, it could be mobile phones, right.  But there’s nothing wrong with books, just like there’s nothing wrong with entertainment games, it’s just a category in a list of categories.  And I think we need to spend more time in the other categories.  I think we need to look at things like history, like business, like science, like nature, like, you know, some of the fundamentals. 
And people have been.  I mean, what’s exciting is when you see some citizen science stuff where some geek who loves to spot a supernova is happily staring at images and giving some information to somebody.  Or those kind of uses as well as helping kids understand – or not just kids—
Let me check if I understood this correctly.  It seems to me that there is such a moral or ethical element in trying to focus on serious or applied games.  Basically what I get from your words is that we need to focus on games that have a serious or applied element, that actually try to do some good.  And entertainment games, they have a function which is to entertain and they are very good at it.  But they don’t go beyond that.  So what I would like to explore with you is this idea of is there any kind of common ethical or moral component that is shared by serious and applied – those who are interested in serious and applied games and those who are interested in entertainment games?  Are there things that can be – in terms of design, in terms of – yes?
So there’s two parties going on.  And in one tent you have Hollywood and they have all these actresses and actors and all flooding around and all the glitz.  In the other tent you’ve got a bunch of grubby people who are not making anywhere near as much money, nowhere near, who are battle torn and they’ve been dragging their cameras through whatever war has been going on or whatever nature they’ve had to sit and wait for days, or whatever they’ve had to set up to capture and do.  And you’ve got that party as well. 
You could say either side could look at the other and go, I’ve got a much more interesting life.  I would say probably that feeling is like, yeah, you know, it’s not Hollywood, we’re documentary makers, we’re telling stories that matter, not just stories to make you feel good.  It’s very similar, the parallels are very similar.  So you’ll find some of the same discourse has occurred in this domain when people have talked about films for the last hundred years.
That’s very interesting.  So would you say you identify a bit with the more independent – there is this – there’s been quite a surge, quite a rise in independent game developers over the last ten years or so.  And many of these more indie developers they often deal with – they make games that deal with issues or thematics, with topics that you will never find in the so called AAA games.  They deal with issues like politics, like grieving, emotional aspects or racism or – they try to make statements.  There is this kind of movement.  So would you say that that kind of area is something that you identify with?  Or there is also another distinction there between that particular community and the serious and applied games community?
It’s the research component, it’s the kind of stepping back component in some ways.  And it’s wonderful to see the – especially young, up and coming, got a crazy idea, I’m going to put Jesus in a game and he’s going to walk on water and it becomes a big thing and it’s some statement about Jesus, because that’s what he feels very strongly about.  And it’s wonderful that that happens.  I think when we see – because when we see it combined with research, I think, I don't know.
It’s the research element that really distinguishes.
Yeah.
Distinguishes the kind of work that you do and – is that right?
Yeah.  And that also is to do with how the entity survives.  If it was a game that took a couple of guys a few evenings or whatever, they were doing something else, they were working in a bar or something.  And it becomes a big thing in the research community, because it’s interesting, lots of people play it, but it doesn’t make them any money.  That’s a different thing and has a different approach.  However now you get a lot more games that are sponsored by various organisations.  So you get a lot of sponsored games.  And there are companies that make a living out of that.  I think for us, for my journey, having survived in the cruel, commercial world as an applied game developer, as an indie applied game developer or serious games developer, I am kind of glad that I’m not doing that anymore.  
But it’s a thrill and it’s fascinating and it’s really exciting.  Because you have to go in in a short period, understand something, turn it into a game, deliver it in a way that it works.  Otherwise you’re not going to get the next gig.  And that all happens in three, six months if you’re lucky.  Nine months if you’re really lucky, but most of the time three, six months.  Which isn't quite the same pace as the applied game, which isn't quite the same applied game research because applied game research is looking at pushing the boundaries.  Whereas when you’re working commercially you’re not pushing the boundaries, you are literally trying to squeeze out. 
And this is interesting.  A lot of the games that were being built for education is now being built by e-learning companies and the authoring tools that have – the richness of the e-learning, they are what they call games, which is really interesting.  Because a quiz is a game, or a matching two things is a game.  And you use the word game to then kind of reduce it down to if you get the question right or wrong.  Which to a more simulation oriented game developer, no, that’s not a game, that’s just like a quiz.  What I mean by a game is it’s got to be playful, you have to have some control over the environment so you can see, so you simulate something.  
And I think that also – the word game is a very amorphous word.  But I think (sighs) when I say applied games I tend to think more the research community and I think serious games is the same word, exactly the same people.  And now I think a lot of games that are being made, they’re not being made by people who call themselves independent game companies, they call themselves digital agency.  They are digital agencies, they do websites, they do games, they do apps, they do de, de, de.  That’s how it’s moved.  And that’s the much more commercial side of it. 
So you’ll see all the major brands at some point or other experimenting with games.  A lot of those clients would have come through digital agencies rather than – at least in the UK, I don’t get there’s a sense – there’s a few companies, and my company seems to be one of the companies. But we’ve kind of survived because everyone else has gone bankrupt trying to do this.  It’s crazy.  When I’ve now been through two, three rounds of companies springing up, doing the kind of thing they’re doing and then they disappear.  But we’ve moved, we’ve changed what we’ve been doing.  Because you can't carry on doing the same things if you want to survive.
Thank you.  I’m going to move on to another topic just so that we can manage to cover everything.  I’d like to talk a bit about the actual mechanics now of video games and their relationship with behaviour, changing behaviours for the better.  That’s what at the end of the day we’re talking about.  What do you think according to you are the let’s say two or even the single one, I’ll leave that up to you, the most distinctive mechanics that according to you have a potential to change behaviour for the better?  Irrespective of where they originated.  Maybe they originated in the entertainment industry and then they were sort transferred to the serious—
You don’t need to go far.  There is only one answer.  There is actually no other answer, this is one of those if it’s a trick question there’s only one answer to this question, and that answer is cooperation and that’s it.  There’s nothing more, if you want one answer it’s cooperation.  Now if you want to break up cooperation—
Please elaborate, because that’s very interesting.  It wasn’t a trick question.  
Look, let’s talk about cooperation.  Cooperation means lots of different things.  And if you want to talk about mechanics, you could have these mechanics.  You could have shared resources, that’s a mechanic.  You could have role-playing, that’s another mechanic, resourced through the cooperation.  Trading, that’s a mechanic.  You could reverse role, mechanic.  You could put in some kind of a dilemma, like a social dilemma, that’s another kind of mechanic.  You could have mutual goals, that’s a mechanic.  You could have shared rewards and shared outcomes.  You could have things like shared ownership and transferring of ownership, alliances.  And you can have actions that are collaborative.  Those are all elements of cooperation.
So if you want to change behaviour just focus on building games that are cooperation and use any of those mechanics.  But the overall thing is not to compete, it’s the complete opposite of everything the marketing people have been spewing, the nonsense that they’ve been spewing, about how competition is a great motivator.  It isn't, it’s only a great motivator if me and you are in a team and we’re trying to beat the other team.  But if I’m just competing against you this isn't going to be good.  As humans we are creatures of cooperation, that’s how we thrive.  And a big problem with a lot of games – in fact, games are almost always competitive, almost always, they come from a competitive kind of space.  Team games obviously are very cooperation and it’s trying to bring that in.  I think even if it’s going to be competition when you’re talking about change behaviour, focus on the idea of positive competition.  
Positive competition is a thing, if somebody doesn’t know it they should go and look it up.  Where you compete on the positive, not compete on, you know – so you compete on how much you helped, you compete on how much you supported, you compete on how well you cooperated, that’s what you compete on.  I think obviously this is very easy to say these things but the biggest problem comes from the cultural shift and the cultural change and how you would get somebody into somebody’s life differently.  And that’s the thing that most people don’t seem to understand, that it takes ninety-nine percent of the effort to get you to do something different than to get you do anything.  
And that ninety-nine percent of the effort isn't about making the game (laughs), it’s about the other ninety-nine percent.  The game will then be a trigger, it can be a way for you to understand, it can be a way for you to get support, it could be a way for you to connect with other people so they can cooperate and help.  Whatever it is, let’s say you’re trying to get people to quit smoking.  There’s a really interesting case study I was reading about an Australian app for quitting smoking.  And they’d kind of stumbled on a few things which obviously someone has been doing this a long time, well, you should have started with those but well done that you arrived at them.  So what you can do when you say you want to quit, your children can send you little wishes, you can press a thing to say, I need some support and somebody will send a nice message.  
Yeah, can you change people?  This is what I’d like.  Someone’s got to look you in the eye and say, I give you a shit about you, and I’m going to be here and I’m going to look after you and I’m going to make sure that you, whatever it is that you need, you have.  Now that can be done virtually but you need to feel it that you have somebody that’s helping you.  Because otherwise change on your own is really, really hard.  Odds are so stacked against you.  And it’s the environment thing as well, it’s an ecological view of it.  This topic is deep but once you get people to do things differently you need to think about their entire ecology, not just the intervention.  The intervention is one part, everything else has to come together.  And I think support is one of those critical things.
Support, okay.  I’ll stop you there.  I just want to make sure that we cover as many areas as possible.  You mentioned cooperation, which is a good mechanic so to speak, and then you talked about competition as a bit problematic, or at least in the ways generally framed in most games.  So that’s what I understood from your answer.  So other mechanics, I’m talking of the actual things that make—
I gave you fifteen mechanics.
I’m talking about – those are actually according to you the problematic, that may be actually the things that are not really – may be effective to influence behaviours but you may have some kind of ethical or moral reservation about using them or implementing them.  Is there anything that you have been thinking about?
What do you want to do?  You see, I don’t like the word ethics belongs in the domain of philosophy where a thesis has an antithesis and it becomes a perspective, an opinion, a framing, and that is the fundamental problem with ethics.  It’s a philosophical framing.  You can use ethics to kill projects and I’ve had my projects killed because of ethics and it’s terrible, it’s a terrible thing.
Please tell me more, that’s an interesting thing to expand on.
You can do no harm, you can look at the kind of – there are obviously different ethical grounds, do onto others as you wish have done to you, have consent, informed consent.  But let me pose you – because this becomes social dilemmas, right.  The bomber that just blew himself up in Manchester, if I was to give you a game which deceived him in some way, never told him and he didn’t have – he hadn’t given his informed consent and I deceived him.  Do you think that is ethical or not?  Let me just pause for a second there, I’ll come back, just a sec.
So a question – a game that deceived him into not doing the act, is that what you’re saying?  You were talking about an example in relation to the recent events in Manchester.
Is it ethical or not?
To do what, sorry, can you repeat, were you asking whether to make a game that would—
So I have the game and the game deceives and it has the power to stop this person from doing what they did.  But it’s unethical according to ethical guidelines, put up by a bunch of people who sit around a table constructing a universe for themselves.  Just a construct, because none of it is real.  It’s just a big of magic, it’s words, it’s philosophy, it’s the antithesis, it’s the construct.  And now I’m using the construct, i.e. the ethical guidelines to tell you that this game is unethical.  But what do you do?  Is it really unethical if it’s going to stop this bomber and it’s not going to cause more bombs, what do you think?
I suppose it isn't, I suppose it’s the—
Ah, you see, the problem is it’s unethical, because we fall back on the ethical framework and the ethical framework says, it doesn’t matter, he still hasn’t committed a crime, we cannot assume.  Therefore we have to give him informed consent, we have to do this, this and this and you completely lose the ability to change somebody.  Because if I come to you and say, Carlo, I am going to change your attitude about ISIS, you’re not – would you mind signing this form to say you give me informed consent that you’re allowing me to do this?  Do you think my work would work then?  No, it wouldn’t.  How do you answer that one?
So do you think that these kinds of questions they actually are paralysing for the designers and developers trying to actually do meaningful work?
Well, you just then don’t do it within a framework of a university, then you can't do it within the framework of research.  You have to then go rogue, you have to then just make the game and release it and then become a part of the indie scene, that’s the only way.  So it’s weird, it’s quite strange, because – now there are ethical things in games which I have issues about and those are around how people are forced to buy games and spend money on games.  
I feel very, very strongly that there’s an ethical problem here and the main problem actually is never going to go away because we have accepted that we live in a consumerist society where someone gives their informed consent that they can be made to feel really awful, or the children can be made to feel that they’re really missing out on something really important in order to extract money from them.  I think that’s a bit unethical.  But again people will say it’s commerce.  Is it really fair to use game mechanics to force people to buy things in a free to play?  Especially if you’re made to feel less worthy or it makes you feel bad if you don’t do it.
Just to follow on on that kind of point you just made, do you think it’s ethical to use the same mechanics for example used in these games, micro transactions and forcing or surreptitiously encouraging people to spend their money.  Do you think it’s okay to use then the same mechanics for more socially acceptable goals?  Let’s say for educational goals, to learn maths or to sensibilise people around a topic, do you think that’s okay?  And that kind of builds on what you said earlier about the example you made earlier.  Do you think it’s okay to do that?
No, for the same reason that I just don’t think it’s okay – now, I’m not saying that people have a choice.  If a developer cannot get somebody to pay them ninety-nine pence for something that they worked with for a year and it’s a pound then they are going to have put ways in to recoup that money.  So the problem is it’s still unethical.  It’s not that they don’t have a choice.  And I think applied games, I think the same things, they’re not necessarily called applied games but some of the let’s say mindfulness.  So you download a map called mindfulness and you get some freebie and it makes you feel really good.  And you think, I’ll spend this money on it, this is content, just like you would in an entertainment game, you’d buy the content.  What’s wrong with that?  That’s just commerce.
It’s not every game developer, you see – there’s a different – it’s not a black and white thing, there are plenty of ways in which you can offer things which are not unethical.  It’s the way it’s applied sometimes.  Particularly I think I really – I noticed this, children were left to install some applications on a device where the group of these devices, they’d make the child feel like they need to download loads and loads of things and then they’re missing out on stuff and then just not giving things until they are – there’s something a bit strange about that.  I looked a bit further and I saw on things like MMOs some of the MMOs the way that the items are displayed.
The looting mechanics is something I’ve been looking into as well as an interesting case.
That and public shaming.  So publicly shaming somebody for not having purchased stuff as well as frustrating them.  So frustrating them, okay, but public shaming, I think that’s where I draw the ethical line.
I’ve got just another couple of questions and then we’ll wrap it up.  While working on games, your own games, do you recall addressing issues such as gender, minority representation, political culture, and these kind of more serious but not possibly serious in the way some people may intend.  And the reason I’m asking this question is because these kind of topics have in the entertainment industry over the last few years have sort of emerged as big topics of discussion, when talking about the ethics of design, of development, and the ethics of usage in the way people use and experience video games.  
So one of the objectives that this project is to try and understand basically because this is what we are trying to do, whether this is something that has any relevance beyond the entertainment industry, whether it’s something we should be paying attention of.  Or whether it’s basically just one of those things that happens because of incidents, because there is a sudden explosion of interest and then things just fizzle out, I don't know.
Well, a few years ago at least in the UK there was a requirement for diversity training which was led by a number of cases that had come to court for people not understanding different cultures.  As a result there was a big explosion of diversity training and diversity type games.  This was much more aimed at businesses.  You’re a big bank, you need everybody trained on diversity training, there’s a game.  That I think I believe there are diversity games out there now, I’m sure there’s more than one e-learning company that will tell you they have a game for diversity training.  But it’s not the same kind of thing in a way that you’re talking about.  Where it’s made into a story, it’s part of the narrative, it’s part of the fiction, it’s part fiction, part – it has a slightly different approach.  Maybe I’ve been out of this, but I haven't seen.  So what games do you have in mind when you’re talking about for example changes in culture, in being the big thinking?
There’s been a number of high profile discussions about focussing on the big AAA games about for example issues like the lack of culturally sensitive representation of women, of minorities.  And there have been debates for example recently this has resulted things like the recent Novawatch as a – there has been a bit of a discussion about how the game made steps forward to represent people from different backgrounds, with different genders, different races and so on.  
And on the other hand there were discussions about how most games, the way they represented – the way the actual mechanics are implemented they tend always to empower particular groups like white, male players.  And they tend to in the representation and the mechanics reproduce, replicate a stereotypical or even damaging perception or representation of women as for example objectified, as passive.  I’m sure you’ve heard of this kind of debate.  There’s been quite a big surge in discussion and some of these things have hit the headlines because of the incidents they have caused.  You may remember the stuff from Gamergate. 
And one of the partners that we have on board in the project is particularly interested in these areas and the implications that all these discussions are having on actual development.  So it’s not just as an academic discussion, but the actual repercussion on the development and the design of experiences of games, of narratives like you said.
Ten years ago people were complaining there were not enough love scenes in games, that there is always aggression, aggression, aggression, and then a game like Heavy Rain came out and started to really engage audiences on an emotional level.  I think as the industry matures much like the film people will find new niches.  I don’t see Hollywood changing, I don’t see why entertainment games are going to change.  And I think anyone who thinks that games are a bubble, they’re not, they’re just part of the same media.  
And I think the same thing that’s happened in films, in that Hollywood is not that diverse really, there’s some diversity but most things aren’t.  Maybe it has, maybe it’s changed, I don't know.  But I think that’s the sign of things to come.  I think you’re right, it’s entirely feasible that a whole generation of liberals, or whatever they call them, game developers want to talk about how many sexes there are in the world, there’s just male and female, or how many in between we have.  But I don't know.  If mainstream game companies find that by putting in more ethnic minorities, by putting in more diversity of sexes, by presenting those stories and they sell more then we’ll see more of it in the entertainment space.  And I think, yeah, why not, it’s an interesting topic that obviously masks peoples’ identities these days.
Do you think there is also some kind of relationship with the composition of development teams, of generally the industry?  One of the big priorities or themes is the idea of bringing more people from underrepresented groups into STEM careers, into technological careers.  Do you think there is a relationship between the way these experiences are designed and the people who actually make them, and the idea of extending basically, of bringing more people in, to be more inclusive, not just in what you create but also in the composition of the people actually involved in the creation of that product?  Do you think there is a relationship or you think it’s something else altogether?
I’m optimistic.  I think there is – just the fact as we started talking about at the beginning, there’s a growth of the consumption of games.  I think games for STEM or STEAM even, in the whole thing, not just STEM, games around creativity and making things together, this is a growing area.  My kids’ school is an inner city London school in one of the poorest boroughs, probably the poorest borough in the country, however they’ve got gamified maths and English and all of that as apps that kids can play at home or on the computer.  And we wanted this for a long time and now we’ve got things in the UK that by the age of nine they have to be able to write a small piece of software, by eleven they have to be able to execute and – it’s great.  Those things, that’s going to drive more kids doing engineering because they’ll get the confidence that they can code at an early age, than anything else to be frank.  
Actually what’s been interesting is that area is teeming now with lots and lots of game companies and companies that are making ways for kids to learn to code, ways for kids to learn to make stuff.  That combined with the fact that there’s a statutory requirement that kids are taught this stuff, this is a good mixture.  I don’t think one without the other would work because I think we always had the other, but because we didn’t have the statutory requirement it was kind of there.  Whereas now the schools need to deliver kids who need to know how to read code and write code, this is part mixed in maths and English.  Good, now, that’s going to definitely drive the growth of that.  
Yes, I’m very optimistic on that, it’s probably one of the best policies for encouraging that that anyone could have had.  And it’s not one that’s in Europe and it’s one that we have in the UK.  So I don’t know which countries in Europe have them to be honest.  That might be an interesting thing to see, the impact of statutory requirements on STEAM.  On the converse side, when they put that in they took out all the personal stuff, so all the – it’s never a balance.  So PHSE and physical, those are no longer required, you’re no longer required to deliver so much touchy feely how to deal with people stuff.  That’s a bit weird.  But anyway, they’ll never get the education system right, because there’s never enough time to do everything.
Last question, which can be just a few words.  It’s about the future direction of things, obviously from your perspective, from your specific angle.  What do you think is the future direction of serious and applied games, according to you?  The main possibilities and challenges and whether they are specific to the serious and applied games sector or they may be more broader, they also applied to gaming in general?
It’s another one of those things that I’m going to come up with just one thing, it’s just this one thing.  Actually in this case there are lots of answers.  However, honestly, the biggest challenge, the biggest disruptor, the biggest thing that’s going to change everything in the next ten years as far as games go and probably a lot of other things, you’re going to guess, it’s going to be artificial intelligence.  
It’s going to be AI, it’s going to be how AI goes from artificial stupidity which is what a lot of games have right now.  Games now implement state machines, if x then y.  Or very rudimentary.  No, we’re not talking about artificial stupidity, any idea can follow an if then statement, that’s artificial stupidity.  We’re actually moving into true artificial intelligence and obviously there’s a lot of stuff around that.  How those agents are used to make the game more interesting, to engage with you even further, to stop you from being able to go to sleep so that you spend more money and more time and see more adverts and play more games and gamble more money and spend more and how you love the game even more.  Because the game knows you now.  The game isn't just a game that was on the thing, the game is now John and you know John because John is a friend of yours.  Games are going to go from being an object to being things that you—
This already happens to a certainly degree, when you get immersed in a game and you’re immersed in the characters and all of that, it’s just like if you’re reading fiction.  But you’ve seen nothing yet.  You’re going to wake up thinking about John and you can't wait to interact with John because John’s your friend and you’ve been playing together for a long time and it’s just AI.  So there’s a scary real future.
That’s interesting stuff (laughs).  All right, thank you very much.
(Laughs)  I spoke too much about thinking about stuff.  
We are at the end.  Thank you again for your time.  I’ll just stop the recording here so that you know when the actual recording is finished.