KEY
Bold:	Interviewer
Regular:	Respondent
[ ]:	Uncertain word(s)

Hello.
Hello, [anonymised], how are you?
Fine thank you, you too?
Good, yes I’m good, thank you very much.  Right, thank you for the interview, much appreciated.  Obviously you’re quite familiar with the project, being on the board and everything.  So as you know, we’re kind of aiming to look at alternative perspectives on gaming and the role of gaming in society and gaming vocation and culture.  So first of all, can I just check and get your consent that you know this is being recorded and that’s okay with you?
Yes, that’s okay.  No problem.
Thank you very much.  This process of interviewing is going to be one of about 60 experts that we’re interviewing over the course of the project, over the course of the next couple of months.  We’re interviewing researchers, we’re interviewing people who might identify as gamers and educators, and policy-makers as well.  These interviews are going be transcribed, anonymised and we’re going to be using the discourse analysis approach to kind of look at the kind of discourse that’s going on around gaming from this large group of experts.  Does that make sense?
Well that’s up to you.  I don’t know.  I think you – I suppose you prepared the interview, kind of structured the interview with certain topics, themes selected.
Yes, the interviews are kind of – they’re very free, in that it’s more of interview prompts.  So I’ve got a grid of potential questions, really, that cover different areas but it’s quite open for me to be able to hopefully prompt you to say the things that you want to say, if that makes sense.  So we’ll talk a little bit about maybe ethics.  I’ll as you about your background.  So we’ll drive the conversation, so there’s not a set list of questions and if I ask something, it’s not because I’m trying to get you to say a particular thing, it’s just we want these voices, really, and these perspectives.  So also at the end, if we’ve not covered anything that you think you would like to say, then please do.  Does that make sense?
Yes that’s fine.
Great, okay.  So without further ado, I’m aiming to be about half an hour as well.  I hope that’s okay with you.
That’s okay, that’s fine, yes.
Great, thank you.  So if I can start then by just getting you to talk about your background and kind of interests and research interests in relation to gaming and gamification.
Well my background is diverse.  I’m a physicist.  I have a PhD in semi-conductors but then I switched, more or less, to becoming a TV and documentary maker and, over the last 30 years, I’m combining, let’s say, my scientific background in physic and mathematics with IT knowledge and social sciences.  Actually over the last 30 years, I’m working on educational media, maybe that is the core term.  Obviously I started with TV, one-way scripts and media.  At my current employer, I’ve been gradually moved to interactive media.  The most advanced interactive media are obviously games and simulations and I do research on these and I’ve created a lot of educational applications also.
Can we talk a little bit about the nature of the kind of gaming or gaming environments that you’re working around or working with and whether you make a distinction between serious and applied games and entertainment gaming?
Yes I’m working in a university of distance education, although this is higher education.  So this is not entertainment games, this is really about making tools for students, that they can learn from, so this is close to simulation games.  Let’s say I’m a bit on the non-entertainment part of games.  When you look at the games of OU now, and some of them I created, they are based on a thorough instructional design and they need not necessarily motivate or entertain because at a higher education level, in contrast with maybe primary education and secondary schools, the motivation should come from the students and the content themselves.  It doesn’t mean that we create awkward games.  Actually, we have games that people love because they sometimes can hardly stop because of the interesting content we offer.
Yes, often people talk about the motivational aspects of games but that’s not your prime concern here.
Well the motivation is high but the mechanism we use, well it’s linked with the game environment and the responsibilities that you have.  These are all, let’s say, characteristics of gaming being in charge for something and having a kind of mission or goal.  You can manipulate the environment, which is more invasive or impressive than reading from books and this is the motivating part for many of our students.  So here they can kind of have a practice orientation, apply their theoretical methodologies and so on, get used with different views and concepts in practice, in a simulated practice.  You know, maybe it’s important that we have a kind of handicap as a distance education university.  We are similar like the British Open University, and so this is distance education.  We don’t have lectures.  We don’t have face to face meetings, very limited actually, and therefore we always look to replacement media that could do the job, and this is why we have quite some attention for videos and for games, simulations, interactive practicals.
So there’s something there about the kind of ability to use games bit in a kind of remote context, so you’re not in the same location as the students.
Exactly, yes.
You’ve talked a bit about the kind of mechanics involved that you might be drawing on.  Can you talk, at all, maybe a bit more specifically about a particular game or a particular application that would kind of illustrate the kind of mechanics that you’re drawing upon?  I’m looking for an example, really, I suppose.
Well I’ve never understood the concept of game mechanics that many people use.  Of course, I know what a shooter game is, you know, these type of genres and game mechanics that people use, but the mapping to educational content is really maybe even impossible to have it in one to one mapping; but we’re talking about scenarios.  Maybe just to give you an example, for instance we have a simulation game for psychologists and before they go into practice, they have to – well it seems a bit odd, but they have to practice before going into practice.  The practice is the application, doing the analysis of clients, patients if you want.  We have simulated patients.  We use videos for this, interactive videos, with a lot of resources, a lot of documents also, being part of an archive. 
So the game scenario is as follows; you are the psychologist and here is a patient.  Your task is to make a proper diagnosis, not just guessing, but applying the right tools, doing some examinations, making some calculations, some probabilities and then coming up with a substantiated report on this.  Now psychology students love this.  After having studied a lot of books and methodologies and theories, this is the first time they can have a quest, search for a solution here, and this is their motivating part.  They study psychology, probably, to apply all these things, to be able to say what’s going on, what’s the situation with this patient.  So that will be an example.  We have quite some more, actually, at the same level.  So the scenario, I would say, is largely based on the professional practice of a psychologist in this case.
That’s really clear.  That’s really helpful, thank you.  That idea of scenario, kind of really, exemplified kind of – shows how that’s quite a useful way of talking about what you’re doing, as opposed to focusing on the kind of game mechanics.  You’ve really kind of made it clear as well about what the benefits of using that sort of environment are for the students.  Could I just flip that an ask, what are the limitations of using that approach with students or do you feel that that’s just successful and it’s the best thing available to you?
Well the limitations are mainly financial.  Psychology students, we have large numbers of those, which means it is affordable to have large upfront investments.  On the other range of the spectrum, we have for instance, environmental sciences, low student numbers.  We have some games created there but yes, we have only a few dozen students per year.  Our conclusion is that this is not feasible at this level.  For creating this stuff, you have to invest some time, not always very much but some.  We always do this calculation.  If we can have a cheaper solution by saying to people, listen for this occasion, we have a separate face to face meeting, we will choose for a face to face meeting.  This is just a financial issue, actually.
This kind of approach you’ve talked about, this kind of scenario gaming that you’re talking about, is this an approach that you would say lots of places take, lots of settings use, or is it something distinct to you because of your interest?  Where has it kind of come from?
I think it comes from the tradition in instructional design.  I’m working in a department which is one of the largest in learning sciences and learning technologies in the world, actually, a big player in Europe.  You know, before games, we had instructional videos.  We had courseware.  I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the term, but this is something like interactive question and answer sessions in the microcomputer at the time, and this evaluated e-learning, learning management systems and the advanced versions of those would be called games or simulations.  According to this tradition, we have always a requirement that we need a sound instructional design before creating anything.  So it’s less a matter of being very creative.  We see it as a professional app to analyse the tasks that are required, the learning goals, the context and all kinds of prior knowledge and support mechanisms to create full instructional design.
I know that in other institutions – well there’s a variety actually, but in higher education, probably a lot of people work the same way but when you go to primary and secondary schools, the playfulness of the thing becomes more important and there you would start from a certain game mechanic or interesting kind of feature that a game could offer, to carry the content.  It’s not black and white, I would say, but there is a kind of gradual shift of importance of those.
Yes, I can see the difference and I can see the difference between what you’re talking about, you’re using.  You’ve opened it up slightly now to talk more broadly about games.  I was thinking about your approach and obviously your approach is to design and create these scenarios, these environments, and you’re not kind of adopting something that pre-exists in an educational context.  You’re making something.  In terms of the decisions that you make about that, does ethics come into play in terms of the design of that environment?
First of all, yes we adopt games as well and other media.  So the first step in the design, or principle, is not to create something that is there already.  So this is the first step.  Once we create, we feel that we need to create something new because there is nothing suited available.  Yes I think there are all kinds of ethical considerations.  It’s actually a hot topic on the agenda internally.  We are all – we have to comply.  I think it’s all over the European Union or maybe even only in the Netherlands.  We have to comply with an ethical manifest as a researcher, which is about the integrities, the professional requirement, actually.  I wouldn’t say there’s a lot of explicit discussion on it but I think it’s fair to say that in the Netherlands, it’s a very liberal and tolerant – it has been, maybe it has become a little less lately, but at the academic level, there is a large awareness of, let’s say, equality, gender equality, non-discrimination and things like that.  More recently, there is this data protection issue, it’s a very hot topic.  We’re working hard on those things in the Netherlands.
You mentioned there, you mentioned being a researcher, ethics around researching.  I’m interested in the relationship between games and the kind of world of academic research.  As a researcher, what do you feel is the status of academic research and scholarship around gaming?  Is it something that’s valued?
Well I think it is interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary, which creates some problems.  I know from the European project that reviews are urging us to go to [0:17:26] Triple A journals, which are not available in this interdisciplinary field yet, or maybe even never.  So I remember I have just opposed the reviews and saying listen, we can go to this education conference or this psychology conference and yes we can even have accepted papers there.  We will not reach out to the intended target group because these are very small numbers.  I remember being on conferences, Tripe A conferences, because well it was a requirement to go there and then you end up in a room with two people or so because it’s not the right target group at the time.  Maybe now – well it’s a few years ago, maybe it's getting better but it’s a bit a tragedy of an emerging field, I would say.  If you want a high rating, you’d better stay in your traditional discipline.
Yes that’s interesting, actually, the cross-disciplinary nature and also how kind of wider research agendas can mean that certain things maybe happen and don’t happen.
Yes, but the problem with games is that it touches on human computer interaction, you know, new devices and tricks.  It uses technical standards, architectures, it links with psychology issues, instructional design, learning theories.  This is quite complex, actually, to even have a shared vocabulary.  I can see it in my department.  So we have 80 researchers.  I would say, roughly, that 50 per cent is social sciences and 50 per cent has a technical background.  Even on the very simple level, you see misunderstandings.  People don’t quite understand what they’re talking about.  
So social sciences wouldn’t understand what a technical architecture is, or game engine; and a technical developer or technical researcher knows a lot about machine learning things and all kinds of complex technical issues but wouldn’t know too much about learning goals, frameworks, competences, things like those for the social sciences.  So yes we have to work in teams, actually, to compensate each other, to make sure that there is a kind of dialogue possible.  Even at a very low level, we have to work together.
Yes, so there’s challenges to kind of even speak to different people with different interests and different understandings.  Yes, that’s very interesting.  In terms of gaming, we’ve talked an awful lot about applied games or the scenarios that you’d create.  Do you have any kind of opinions or relationships, personal or otherwise, with entertainment gaming?  Do you game?  Do you play games yourself?
I sometimes do but I’m not a typical gamer.  I’d better say no, don’t classify me in that category because I’m simply – no, I’m not a real enthusiast gamer.
Yes, that’s fine.  In terms of future directions for the kind of games that you’ve got an interest in and have an understanding of, and your kind of research, I’m interested if you’ve got an idea of what kind of directions that research might take or what are the future possibilities or challenges or tensions?  So something about the future.
Sorry, I think I lost you.
Hello, are you there?
Chris are you still there?
I’m there, can you hear me?
Yes, could you repeat the question, please.  I think we had a little break of the connection.
Of course I can, we did.  You went silent, or I did.  Simple question.  Well, a simple question with lots of possible answers.  I’m interested in what you might see as the future for gaming and games research in your area.  So are there potentials and challenges around researching the sort of games that you’re making and using?
Yes, that’s a difficult question but I think a big problem I referred to already is the complexity of game creation.  So I think, and there is already a lot of work being done there, is working on all kinds of approaches, methodologies and tools for supporting game development, applied game development or even entertainment game development.  So there are kind of design methodologies, there is procedural content generation, you know I’m working on this Rage project, which focuses on reusable technology components which you just can plug in to speed up the process.  So this is one line which is, I think, absolutely necessary to reduce the cost of game creation.
Then there is a kind of conceptual issue, probably the better integration of instructional design knowledge in game design knowledge, which is not self-evident by the way, because they’re kind of conflicting.  For instance, let me give you an example.  A game developer or a designer would say this is a nice game, it produces flow, you know, it’s ideal because if you are in the cognitive flow, you cannot stop.  So if a game has good balance, you should not touch it; whereas an instructional designer would say, yes but if you are in a flow, you don’t reflect on what is happening.  If you don’t reflect, you don’t development, make the cognitive skills.  You’re pushing too much for performance and doing everything in time, avoiding mistakes and things like that.  Sometimes you just deliberately have to make mistakes to learn something, and this is a kind of conflicting approach.  Sometimes you should prefer one approach, sometimes you prefer the other one, maybe have a good balance.  This is a quite difficult issue.  It even goes beyond the conceptual level because it’s also probably linked with the sub-culture of game development and the sub-culture of teaching, these are different frameworks that they rely on.
So the future is challenging in lots of way because of the complexity of what is being worked on and the kind of idea of games being that complex.
Yes, well I’m talking about applied games and I think there’s a lot of work to be done in finding approaches.  Maybe as a summary, to say balancing the educational or pedagogical perspectives and the game perspectives.
Great.  One final point, I think, and then I’ll see if there’s anything that you feel we’ve missed.  We’ve talked around games as, I suppose, the potential for involvement in cognitive development and people playing out scenarios and – I say playing, but taking part in scenarios.  Do you feel that games have a role in social development?  Is there a role for games in that area?
Yes, certainly, but I’m talking about, let’s say, from the basis of the Open University.  When you have a wider scope, you see the social dimension of games.  Lately, over the last five years, I think there’s a lot of multi-user games or public social media-linked games in Facebook and so on, where you can either play together or rate or comment each other’s performance and young people play a lot of those games.  So from a societal perspective, this is a social media type of activity.
Is there anything during this conversation – we’ve touched on lots of different things and we’ve hopefully explored, to some extent, the work you do.  Is there anything you feel that you could have said that you’ve not said?
Well there’s a lot more to say, probably.  So for instance, I mentioned two potential interesting lines of research.  Maybe I should add also artificial intelligence like machine learning things and the data crunching that allows better balancing and analysis of the mental state of players, the learners.  So there is huge activity here.  A lot of data collection but not the real tools yet for drawing valid conclusions from all the data, so there’s a lot of work to be done, also.
Okay, so there’s an intention or there’s a hope there to gain some understanding of games and related things, but we’ve not necessarily got the methodologies to explore them.  Would you say that’s what you were trying to…?
No well you see a lot of games that have scores and all these things, and then you know, I’m a bit biased in applied games, serious games, but the analytics that you see are like the distribution of players and their scores, their performances in games, but there is no clear link with the learning itself because it’s just adding up the performances and performance is not necessarily the same as the learning dimension; which means that what is now labelled as learning analytics is more like a useful overview of how people perform in their games but it’s hard to make the next step to see how the learning functions and what support functions would be needed, what interventions would be needed to promote the learning from the learners.
Yes, that makes sense.  Thank you.  Well [anonymised] , thank you.  That’s half an hour.  It's been fascinating to talk to you.  You’ve covered a lot of ground, so all that’s left for me to say is thank you very much.
Okay.  Well I wish you good luck with the next interviews.  You have a lot to go, I suppose?
I think I’ve got nine more lined up at the moment.  You’re only my second but there’s lot of other – the other partners, and Carla, are working on different interviews, so we’ve got a lot lined up but yes, I’ve still got quite a few to come but they’re so interesting because you get different perspectives on the whole thing, so yes, it’s brill.  Thank you very much.
Okay, you’re welcome.
Okay, enjoy the rest of your day.  Thank you.  Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.