In collaboration with Mari Emilie Mothes and Pablo Marinero Garcia.
WHAT:
This was a school project where the task was to design a collapsible space for a chosen cultural group. The cultural group was chosen based on the disinterest and lack of knowledge in the specific cultural group. Therefore, one could not be a part or have any relations to the culture in advance. Our team choose to work with the cultural group of gamers and later, more specifically, e-sport players.
This was a school project where the task was to design a collapsible space for a chosen cultural group. The cultural group was chosen based on the disinterest and lack of knowledge in the specific cultural group. Therefore, one could not be a part or have any relations to the culture in advance. Our team choose to work with the cultural group of gamers and later, more specifically, e-sport players.
OCTO is a game designed to improve the skills needed to be a better e-sport player.
WHY:
For some, gaming is no longer just a hobby, it's a real job and with a salary. That is what E-sport (electronic sports) is.
“It’s a lot of work to be a professional e-sport player, I don’t think people realize that. It’s a job, we must practice a lot, it’s not always fun, you can get tired of it.”
- Norwegian e-sport player.
HOW:
A deep dive into the culture was performed to get a wide understanding of the culture’s nature and the people involved. The purpose of this was to be able to design a product which the cultural group could enjoy and relate to. Throughout the process, the understanding of the culture expanded after several encounters and interviews with individuals from the culture. Using the information gathered, an ideation process, feedback and iterations, resulted in the design of a game that makes the user become a better professional gamer.
At the start of the project it was assumed that the personal gamer space, their room for instance, would become very interesting. Nonetheless in relation to collapsing this space. By moving further this topic was never elaborated. This was due to never coming close to the core or the inside of this this personal place. This then resolved in a different approach to what space to collapse.
A notice was made of the space inside the actual game. It was intriguing to see and experience how the world inside of the computer is so vivid and real, and how you can spend hours inside it without noticing the actual space around you. While discussing this specifically in relation the e-sport players, who need to play games because it is their profession, it became apparent that this space had another meaning to them. The game-space had in a way become its own training- and work space. A place they must go to for evolving their skills and to work. And when compared to an actual job, it would be quite similar. They log out of the game when the practice session ends, just like you would close the door to the office. This discovery resulted in further thoughts about how to collapse their training and work space, to benefit them in becoming a better e-sport player. This was done by making OCTO change the training environment. Since it is not a computer game, it moves the training space outside of the computer screen. This way it collapses the in-game training space and adds a physical training experience. Having the same repeated task in the same environment can become boring over time, and then prevent work and thereby also prevent progression. By then collapsing the regular and obvious training space, OCTO averts this, while still working on improving the same skills that are needed in progressing towards an e-sport players working-goal; to become the best.
