International Games Day

Event: International Games Day, November 3, 2012

I saw the multi-colored flyers of International Game Day at Powell Library and now that I think about it, it really reminds me of pop art, which is making art into “multiples” (Lecture 6) and how who ever made these flyers made them on so many colors of neon that are so bright to attract students to be interested. It certainly caught my eyes and I was really interested. I was already energized by the many colors I saw in front of me. This design or advertisement served its purpose very well because of the design of using certain colors and its placement (having them next to each other so all the colors are seen at once by the viewers). Secondly, what was on the flyer was also a great choice and helped served to attract people to this event. There are so many famous and well known game icons on this flyer. This is quite contradicting because I believe I only saw chess and a deck of cards available at the actual event, yet there are so many other game icons that are on the flyer but not present at the event. The design of putting well known and common games that everyone mostly are familiar with relates to brand loyalty and the design of branding everything. When I see the monopoly man or Pac-man, I felt happy because it brought me back to good old childhood memories of my siblings playing those games with me and how happy our lives were. These brands really relate to showing people that if we play this game or have this product, we will live happily. This same concept goes with other brands as well.

            Now in the actual event, I see that games really reflect culture of an area in the world, this is the area where the games are played. For instance, The “Los Angeles Loves You” Game really interested me. I know, it was designed in Los Angeles and why was it designed? It was designed and created because people in Los Angeles relate to the values of the game. Los Angeles residents know how bad traffic is over here, thus, a great way to make fun of this frustrating aspect of the city is though this game. I do not think this game would be as popular if it was played in Africa where there are very few cars. Thus, games really reflect people’s culture and what they are interested in. This way of designing games to fit the people that share a certain cultural background is a successful way of finding meaning to what makes a good game or what makes fun moments.