Community Research
This was a great self-reflection exercise to remind me of the things I felt connected to. After spending some time mulling over what communities I felt a part of, I ended up with a pretty long list. Two communities that I think I could potentially create a game for are:
Personal growth/self improvement
Empathy building
Looking at the first one, the self improvement industry has shown tremendous growth in the last decade and is valued at ~10 billion today - a lot more than I expected!! Research suggests, it began in the 1970s as part of the“self fulfilment” and “self realisation” trend among baby boomers. Today, many more including young millennials are driven towards growing and evolving as individuals, and are taking advantage of the widely available tools online. Besides books, workshops and personal coaching, tons of apps and other online tools have made their way into the market.
Source: https://medium.com/the-ascent/the-4-ugly-lies-of-personal-growth-1e640e2588a8
With an increased awareness of personal development amongst youngsters, I think game mechanics can be a fun and less serious way to work on a particular growth area. Growth areas could include self-reflection, renewing one’s identity, or working on a specific area, among many others. Theres are tons of self improvement tools and tactics out there, but the idea of turning it into something fun and socialising with like-minded people really excited me.
Coming to the second one, I wasn't sure if I could list it as a community initially, but soon realised the shared importance of this skill today. Being empathetic affects one’s personal life, social life and now, even one’s work process. It has become a trending skill to have amongst designers today - to be able to think from the user’s perspective has become crucial when building products.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw
After digging in a little deeper, I also learnt that there are three types of empathy people may/may not have - cognitive empathy, emotional empathy and empathic concern. Cognitive empathy is the ability to think from others perspectives, emotional empathy is the ability to feel what others are dealing with, and empathic concern is the ability to understand how someone is feeling and wanting to actually help. So, one could be empathetic in one way, and not in the others. Research also suggested that building empathy requires training and practice and isn’t something one can build overnight. This made me think, well why not with a game? I realised this could be fun for kids and even adults. I value this skill a lot in many ways and I think introducing the concept in even subtly in the form of a game could benefit kids and adults!