The Meaning of Play: Narrative for Games

Bateman is an award-winning game designer who has been invited to speak on five continents about games, play, and technology ethics. “We all have different motives for play,” he explains, “but we share the same biology behind them – and we share these with other animals too, some of which have been playing for far longer than we have.”

His presentation takes the audience on a billion year journey through the history and pre-history of play, and shows the remarkable achievements of humanity in developing tools for play, such as dice, boards, and more recently videogames.

“I’m very grateful that the university has given me this opportunity to share my research with academic colleagues, students, and the general public in the United States,” he adds, “and I’m greatly looking forward to sharing my exploration of what play means.”