Kam Star CRe-AM Interview

Name : Kam Star

Job Title : CEO and Founder

Organisation : Playgen

Sector : Serious Games

Web Link : www.playgen.com

Interview Date : 22/9/2015

Location : London

Short Biography

Kam Star is a digital media entrepreneur, inventor, researcher, investor and award winning games developer. Creating his first computer game in 1986, he studied Architecture and is deeply passionate about innovation in play, influence and collective intelligence.

Founder of PlayGen, Kam designs and develops playful solutions and platforms for delivering engaging experiences across the digital landscape. He has produced gaming projects for the European Commission, BBC, AVIVA, Eden Project, UNESCO, McKinsey, Oxford and Cambridge Universities, EPSRC, NESTA, MoD, NHS, TSB, Wellcome Trust and many more.

Kam is also the founder of Digital Shoreditch, with the aim of bringing the outstanding creative, technical and entrepreneurial talent closer together and to one day create the SXSW of London. Through Digital Shoreditch Kam has worked with City of London, London Stock Exchange, London and Partners, Ogilvy & Mather, Pearson, Amazon, City University, Queen Mary's University, Ordnance Survey and hundreds of other awesome individuals and organisations. 

Specialties: Highly skilled multidisciplinary design and development manager and producer. Competent in aesthetics and visual design as well as mathematics and technical design. Software architecture, game play mechanics, gamification, control mechanisms, interface design, AI programming, platform design, authoring tool design, serious games, game based learning, influence through play, persuasion, behavioural economics, cyber influence, bringing people together - and oh yeah starting festivals

CURRENT INTERESTS:

1. What current technologies and tools fulfill your needs in your practice?

Dekstop computers and Middleware, Autodesk and Adobe tools, Macromedia Fireworks, Openweb technologies, Javascript – NOT Unity (because of corporate IT policies)

2. What technologies do you see emerging in the next 5-10 years?

New interface devices, No Java or Flash plugins, Merging of creative tools by Adobe and Autodesk, Display processing technologies, decline of Flash as a platform

3. Could you identify any strengths and weaknesses with these technologies?

Barriers for entry to videogame development far lower, IT policy constraints for serious games, possible accessibility problems

FUTURE INTERESTS:

4. Do you think there are additional technologies or tools needed, or that you would wish for?

Better form factors for Virtual Reality (e.g. visors or glasses), sentient (intelligent) interface devices, bone conducting audio, tactile surfaces, Artificial intelligence, Affective computing, Neuromorphic processing

 

5. If these were available what would you be creating?

“Aware” (Intelligent and adaptive) Games – device becomes personalized and adaptive to the user – team games which use personalized intelligent avatars.

6. Can you see any strengths and weakness involved?

Social impact of these technologies on personal relationships, less demands on human intelligence

7. What do you recommend to fill the gap between creators and technology providers?

Less silo mentality, cross sector education in which creative study technology and vice versa