are of playing games you see I grew up
in the African nation of Tanzania which
in a little more context I’ve been
excluded from the world economy on the
basis of its president Julius Nyerere a
statement that he would not let his
friends choose his enemies so I built
mud castles for my entire soldiers and I
dug little racetracks from my matchbooks
Matchbox cars and I taught games like
connect for and you know to my Tanzanian
friends there wasn’t a lot of
electricity I didn’t have a television
screen in my home until I was a teenager
and so creative fun was a staple of my
childhood especially with others now my
family has always loved games games with
dice games with cards board games and so
my game education progressed from the
simple games of Candyland and so on to
the more complex life Monopoly Scrabble
Yahtzee and then on to the adult games
of hearts and spades and the
little-known
Texan domino game of 42 like I said
sitting around the table with my family
always brought me joy and it was a lot
of fun I learned a lot of lessons
playing games as well and and that’s why
I want to talk about that today you see
as a teacher I’ve seen the benefits
learning how to play games has for
students the British professional golfer
Stephen Potter created a new word in
1947 he called it gamesmanship and this
word quickly became popular in the UK
and then it spawned on the words like
sportsmanship that I’m sure you know his
idea with gamesmanship as he as he
termed it was the art of winning without
actually cheating now there are a lot of
important social lessons to be learned
from games in order that you’d be
successful when you interact with others
the most important of which is of course
how to lose without flipping out or
bored over and then how to win without
gloating and then making no one never
want to play with you again now I’ve
seen this in action in schools because
as a teacher I’ve participated in and
started many gaming class now the only
gaming club that was available to me
when I was a student was the Chess Club
and that’s that’s not what I’m talking
about what I’m talking about here now is
is more creative games games that bring
people together from all over the globe
here it just we have a card game that
plays every Friday at a teachers room
and draws dozens of students you can see
them here playing on their lunch break
and I myself am the rather reluctant
supervisor of the judges in Dragons club
which meets in my room weekly as well
now in these sorts of international
school context students come from all
over and when a new student arrives and
finds a club like this they find a
setting in which they can bring their
knowledge in their skill base and
immediately find ability to demonstrate
excellence in a social context these
game cups provide community and they
create connections between these
students now I have a lot of games I’ve
bought a lot of them and I actually came
here this morning from rugby practice
because I also coached the boys Farsi
rugby team so I like to play in all its
forms but there is a game that I like
most and in Zimbabwe where I was a
teacher for four years I started another
Club for students and for adults now
this is for a game that’s my favourite
game but it’s not very broadly known and
if I’m honest it’s a game about which
I’ve always been a little embarrassed
you see this game is called
melodramatically I know
Warhammer now this is a tabletop
strategy game that involves tiny figures
now it’s really more than a game because
the player in this case me has to first
Buy and then cut out and then glue
together and then paint the game pieces
like like this guy now it probably took
me about an hour and a half to paint
this guy and I have
airplanes and monsters and Dragons and
all sorts of things um so why am i
invested so much time and money to my
regret in this this game in this hobby
the answer is quite simple it’s
community you see in Zimbabwe I extended
this to my students and in another
country where there’s not much
electricity and not much to do this
provided a lot of entertainment and
connections between students from all
over the world but I also found to my
surprise a group of the develop
professionals who wanted to play this
game we played every week at my house
for four years and playing playing this
game rolling dice laughing commiserating
eating pizza together brought in
Richmond and enjoyment to my life and to
theirs now this is not an isolated thing
and it doesn’t extend only to these
sorts of games as I did some research in
preparation for this I found out that
even in video games there’s a lot of
community that’s built you see people
like to watch each other play video
games I remember this from my own
teenage years watching my friends
playing Metroid and Donkey Kong on the
Super Nintendo working our way through
Madden season of football taking turns
because you see you know there’s only
one person playing the game perhaps the
others again give advice commiserate
laugh and everyone enjoys it
there are even tournaments where
thousands of people come to watch
professional gamers go head-to-head and
participate in this endeavor I read an
article in a November issue of The New
Yorker which was focused on how to use
this to get rich and people are getting
rich doing this which is which is
interesting there’s an online gaming
channel called twitch this is now a
multi-billion dollar company where
professional gamers livestream their
play to audiences of sometimes up to
thousands of people at a time they
streamed for hours 14 18 hours on end
you know sort of confirming this sort of
cliche of the person sitting alone in
the basement with
noodles or whatever right but this is
not what it’s about what really
interested me about this article was the
description of these chat rooms these
these gaming sites as kind of a virtual
neighborhood hub you see the regulars
who go there are greeted warmly by name
there’s a chat feed and so when someone
signs in they’re recognized they’re
greeted by the gamer who of course you
know sort of has a gift of gab and
achieve some sort of celebrity from
doing this and they participate in each
other’s lives the article talked about
these these these audience members
watching someone play a game sharing
life advice sharing inside jokes even
sharing instances of grief or depression
all on an online site I’ve seen my own
son do this he uses some of his sort of
allocated online time to watch somebody
play Minecraft on YouTube this baffled
me until I realized that these people
too are searching for community now
these communities are growing in them in
the board game industry as well the
industry is growing in 30% a year their
shops springing up all over the world
I’ve visited several in the UK in the
United States and even in Singapore
where you can rent the right to play
games they have hundreds of games and
you sort of just pay an hourly rate you
drink a cup of tea and you sit there
with your friends and play games how is
this happening how are these simple
board games like risk and so on
competing with the digital wonderland
that is modern video gaming well my
answer for that is that I think there’s
something special about doing something
in person there’s something special to
me about putting my painted army on the
table to my geeky pride I’ve even wanted
little prizes and competitions for my
painting and so there’s recognition in
that as well I also am recognized for my
skill and for my aptitudes in these in
these domains and this extends to
everyone who participates it’s sort of
like the reason you’re here instead of
just watching YouTube videos of Ted
there’s something about going like going
to the theater instead of going to the
movies something about being there in
person hearing the reactions of people
around you smelling a visceral sensation
of presence of interaction that’s not
present in a movie seat there’s also
just the connections that are built so I
don’t think this is ever going to go
away and I’m very pleased by this I’m
very happy to see that in this ever
increasingly large world people are
still needing so reaching out for these
kinds of connections so my message today
is quite simple it’s that you’re not too
old to play games and you shouldn’t stop
so whether it’s revisiting a childhood
favorite or trying out one of the many
interesting new games sitting down with
the friend sitting down with your family
I encourage you to sit down play a game
[Music] [Applause]