I was recently invited to speak at the first Megagame Design Symposium by True North Megagames. The Symposium brought together a bunch of megagame enthusiasts and put on a series of talks about various aspects of megagame design, on the topic of “Megagames in the Future”.
It also featured various other elements, including breakout sessions, an art exhibition and an open forum on gender equality.
But back to those talks – I was first up, with my talk on “Megagames in 2030”.
The talk was recorded, so you can watch it in full below:
Not in the mood for a video? Keep reading for a summary of the “Megagames in 2030” talk.
Introduction, and what we can’t predict
In 2010, three megagames took place: War In The West, Come One And Eorl, and Of Gods And Men.
In just the first two months of 2020, thirteen megagames took place.
In the few short months since, COVID has brought a complete halt to in-person megagames. Luckily, we have a lot of fast thinkers and talented innovators in our community, so we have already seen multiple online megagames being run – in just a few short weeks of adaption. As lockdown eases, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw designers adapting to that as well, with socially distanced megagames.
Challenges, like COVID, force new ways of thinking and to find new ways of doing things that have always been done a certain way. We can’t predict what challenges will arise in the coming years, and so there are some things about the future of megagaming that we will never be able to predict.
But let’s look at some things we can.
The definition of a megagame
I won’t be defining megagames here (you can read my poem doing just that if you like), but however you do define megagames, it’s a pretty broad definition. And by 2030, I predict it will be even broader, for a few reasons.
Generations of megagame designers
You could split megagame designers into three broad generations (and bear in mind that not everyone will fit neatly into one of these generations):
- Gen One – the original founders of megagames, the Megagame Makers, who have decades of experience designing games, and usually come from a wargaming background
- Gen Two – the second wave from 2014 and onwards, who have attended a Gen One designer’s megagame, normally as a result of seeing the Shut Up & Sit Down video.
- Gen Three – designers who have never attended a megagame (or at least, not a Gen One designer’s megagame)
You could consider that Gen Two designers, when putting together their games, “misunderstood” some aspect of megagame design. Gen One had always designed games in one particular way or with one particular feature, and Gen Two designers just did it a different way.
And when you get to Gen 3 designers, this effect is even more pronounced. Compare it to Chinese Whispers: the later designs aren’t necessarily better or worse than the originals, just a change of format.
By 2030, we’ll have designs from all three generations being run concurrently.
Diversifying the player base
It’s fair to say that in 2010, the megagame player base was predominantly British, white and male, and came from a wargaming background. The Shut Up & Sit Down video did more than introduce new people to the hobby – it introduced a huge wave of board gamers to it. More recently, people have also been coming along from tabletop roleplay, from LARP, and even non-gaming backgrounds such as Model UN and immersive theatre.
Along with the wider gaming background, we’re also seeing people of different ages, genders, countries, nationalities, ethnicities and cultures start megagaming. These people bring with them different perspectives, on everything from what settings are interesting to what is a fun activity to be doing at a game. Take the gaming background, for example. If you ask a LARPer and a wargamer to design a science game, you’d end up with two completely different systems.
As the community diversifies, the designers diversify. As the designers diversity, so do the games being run. And as the games diversify, the definition of a megagame continues to broaden.
Commercialising megagames
Over the past 10 years, megagames have almost exclusively been hobby games. The one or two people making any sort of income from megagames are definitely the exception, but the interest in that is growing.
However, there are challenges to commercialisation:
- Megagames are huge undertakings in terms of effort and time
- Many megagames are one-shots with secret plots or private briefings
- Megagames rely on unpaid volunteers as Control
- The profit margin is low, and to bring new people into the hobby, megagames would benefit from staying competitively priced
- The time commitment (6-8 hours) may be offputting to new players
- Megagames currently often demand a significant amount of pre-game reading
Therefore, a megagame which is successfully commercialised will need to find ways to combat the above issues, such as:
- Being shorter (to increase profit margins and make them more accessible to newbies)
- Being larger in terms of players (to increase profit margins)
- Having more simplified rules (to decrease pre-game reading)
- Have less detailed or personalised briefings (to be more repeatable)
Overall, this could lead to the simplification of megagames, or at least those run commercially.
Many out there, especially the “labour of love” designers, may not consider these to be true megagames – but crucially, they will be being advertised as megagames. The designers will have set out to create a commercial megagame, so why wouldn’t they? So those games and their participants would end up entering the megagaming space, whether we as a community want them to or not.
There are many positives that will come with the commercialisation of games, such as better build quality, improved components, increased playtesting and compensation for Control – but the shorter, repeatable, simplified games are inevitable along with them.
Defining megagames
So the definition of a megagame will broaden, thanks to the “misunderstandings” of Gen Three designers, a more diversified player base, and the introduction of commercial megagames to the community.
Technology
Technology is surely going to see an increase in use over the next ten years. Right now, heavily relying on technology at a megagame is likely to raise the eyebrows of the more experienced players who have seen it go wrong at games before, but as technology continues to become more intuitive, more accessible and easier to use and design with, it will naturally become more common at games.
Consider how the Press game has evolved over time. Originally, it was headlines on flipcharts. When I started megagaming, it was a laptop and a printer to produce print newsletters. When Twitter got big, it was tweeting, and more recently it’s been websites, audio announcements and even live recorded video.
We’ve already seen some adoption of WhatsApp at games, for both players and Control to keep in touch. Other types of technology could include:
- QR codes (to release late-game rules or rule updates)
- NFC technology (to interact with mechanics at game stations)
- Augmented reality (to interact with mechanics and add immersion)
- Virtual reality (to play megagames remotely)
- Apps (for a huge host of reasons)
Right now, tech like this is used only rarely at games, for two reasons. Firstly, there’s some apprehension about telling players that participation requires a smartphone. Although they’re common now, eventually the threshold will be crossed where you can just assume an attendee will have one.
And secondly, there just isn’t tons of knowledge about these technologies within the community at the moment – and generally, if someone designing a game knew how to make an app, that game got an app. As the community grows and more people with technical skills come along, our games will get more techy.
Growth of the community
From three games in 2010 to thirteen in January and February 2020, it’s clear megagames are on the rise. I think my 2030, we won’t be trying to catalogue them all, as the task will be insurmountable. There’s no one keeping track of every single LARP in the world, is there?
But there are a few reasons the community might not continue to grow. There is the potential for knowledge loss. Gen One designers will eventually retire from the hobby. And Gen Two designers, particularly those of a similar age demographic to me, will find themselves with less time to devote to it due to increasing work and family commitments. By this point, it will be whether we have sufficient Gen Three designers in the community to keep it going.
There’s also the issue of the “One-Game Phenomenon”. This is where a designer pours their heart and soul into the first game they design, which happens to be on their favourite topic in the world. And then after the game runs, they consider what hard work it was, and many don’t go on to design a second game.
To mitigate this, we can consider what games are likely to still be around by 2030, and two clear candidates come to mind: Watch The Skies and Den of Wolves. These are great games to keep the hobby going. They’re suitable for newbie players. The game materials can be acquired easily so they’re good for newbie game runners if there isn’t a local community.
And they’re simple games that can be modded. There are already several “mods” for Watch The Skies, and if designer John Mizon gives permission I’m sure we’ll see some spinoffs of Den of Wolves in the coming years. This means that they’re a useful gateway for first time designers to try their hand without the pressure of designing a whole game.
Summary
So – megagames in 2030. There’ll be so many games, we won’t even be trying to count them. They’ll be run by tons of different people. Someday there’ll be a 12 year old who’s become the youngest ever designer of a megagame. There’ll be shorter, simpler commercial games, bringing megagames to a whole new community of people that wouldn’t attend games in their current format.
There’ll be designers from theatrical backgrounds who have actors to put on sketches between turns or to interact with as NPCs. A virtual reality technician will design an in-person megagame you can play from home.
The definition will be even broader, and the arguments about what a megagame is will be just as fierce.
But I’ll tell you something – I’ll still be playing them.
Check out True North Megagames’ Facebook group, where they will soon be sharing more videos from the Symposium. If you are female or non-binary, you can also join the Discord server created off the back of the Open Forum on Gender.