Through the design of educational or otherwise transformative experiences, the designers self-fashion themselves in ways and in directions that are analogous to those that they intended to elicit in the recipient of their work. In this paper, originally presented at the 2015 Philosophy of Computer Games Conference in Berlin, discusses a pilot study that we conducted in 2014 at the University of Malta. Our experiments inaugurate and offer an initial validation to the field game design as an effective context for education and social change.

2. …throughgamedesign

3. Stefano Gualeni
-stefano.gualeni@um.edu.mt-

4. MikroMortalTennis(1995) 4

5. (1998-2005)
5

6. DangerousHeaven(2006) 6

7. TheUnfinishedSwan(2011) 7

8. Gua-Le-Ni(2012)
8

12. …throughgamedesign

13. IMPLICITATTITUDES:
Implicit attitudes are automatic (pre-conscious)
judgments through which a subject evaluates of
anobjectorasituation.
Theycanbepositiveornegative.

14. A positive automatic association with sugary and
unhealthy foods can have a number of causes (family,
culture, food representation in media &
advertisements,etc.)

15. B.S.I.HYPOTHESIS:
A positive implicit attitude towards sugary and fatty
food is a key factor in the development of teenage
obesityintheWesternworld.

16. Take a group of overweight teenagers and make their
attitudetowardsunhealthyfoodlesspositive.
Then observe if that transformation corresponds with
achangeintheireatingbehaviors(andweight).
TRANSFORMATIVEVIDEOGAMES*

17. An interesting challenge for my M.Sc. students in
GameDesignattheUniversityofMalta!
1) EVALUATIVECONDITIONING
2) ATTENTIONALBIAS
3) GO/NO-GOPARADIGM

18. INCREASE THE PLAYERS’ IAT SCORES (more positive
towardshealthyfood,lesstowardsfatty,sugaryfood)

21. …andgamescanbepowerfulalliesof
scientificresearch!

22. TRANSFORMATIVEPRACTICES
Transformative practices are
activities that are deliberately
designed to provoke or facilitate
specific psychological, cognitive,
behavioral,orconvinctionaleffects.

23. TRANSFORMATIVEPRACTICES
TRANSFORMATIVEVIDEOGAMES*

24. TRANSFORMATIVEPRACTICES

25. TRANSFORMATIVEPRACTICES

26. In my latest work, I do not address the
transformational qualities that
(video)gameshaveontheirplayers…
What happens to the designers, when they
are engaged in the processes of designing a
gamethatistransformativefortheplayers?
TRANSFORMATIVEPRACTICES
BUTONTHEGAMEDESIGNERSTHEMSELVES!

27. Game design is explored as a ‘technology of
theself’,asaself-transformativepractice.

28. CONCEPTUAL BASIS: during the process
of structuring transformative experiences
for somebody, we inherently develop and
refineourownsensitivityandknowledge.

29. SELF-TRANSFORMATIVEVIDEOGAMES

30. MYHYPOTHESIS:intheprocessofdesigninga
(video)game with transformational goals for
its audience – the designers inevitably self-
fashion themselves in ways and in directions
thatareanalogoustothosethattheyintended
toelicitintherecipientsoftheirwork.

31. “There is a greater
liberation potential
in designing games
rather than playing
games.”

32. MYHYPOTHESIS:intheprocessofdesigninga
(video)game with transformational goals for
its audience – the designers inevitably self-
fashion themselves in ways and in directions
thatareanalogoustothosethattheyintended
toelicitintherecipientsoftheirwork.

33. WETRACKEDTHEDESIGNERS’OWNIMPLICITATTITUDES
TOWARDSFOODDURINGTHEDESIGNPROCESS!

34. BRIEF/RELATIONSHIPWITHTHECLIENT
RESEARCH(bibliographic,experimental…)
CONCEPTUALIZATION(andfeedback)
ITERATION(testing,redesign,feedback)
QUALITYASSURANCE/TUNING
NINESTUDENTS(7DESIGNING,2CONTROL)

36. Subjectwiththemostimprovedscore

37. Subjectwiththemostdecreasedscore

38. The group that designed food-related transformative
games improved its IAT results during the design
process.Theothertwosubjectsbothdecreasedit.

39. Q1: Did the students’ implicit attitudes
towards food change during the process of
designingatransformativevideogame?
A1: Our answer is a tentative ‘yes’, which
encouragesmoreresearch.
Q2: Is there a correlation between the students’
changes in their implicit attitude towards
healthyfoodsandchangesintheirweight?
-RESEARCHQUESTIONS-

41. Subject2wasthebiggestloser(-6kg)

42. Subject6wasthebiggestgainer(+4kg)

43. The first group lost weight (- 7Kg), while the second
gained 6 Kg, suggesting the existence of some
correlationbetweenchangesinIAT&changesinweight.

44. Albeit not conclusively, our hypothesis seems to
beconfirmed(lesssureabouttheweight).
Future research will hopefully clarify for which
transformative and educational activities the
design of games and videogames can suitably and
effectivelyfunctionasaself-fashioningpractice.
-CONCLUSIONS-