Eric Zimmerman recently posted a manifesto on what he calls the Ludic Century as a prelude to his forthcoming book “The Gameful World.” The manifesto predicts that our increasingly data driven culture will be largely accessed through user interfaces inspired by digital games.

Democratization does not equate with ubiquity, but there will be enough users to influence other aspects of culture.

Abe Stein, a research affiliate with the MIT Game Lab, thoughtfully expressed concerns that the Ludic Century is biased toward Western Culture. Stein faults Zimmerman’s manifesto for failing to acknowledge that a large portion of the world does not consume games or digital technology.

While we cannot deny the statistics on global Internet usage or that access to digital technology is restricted in much of the world, there are several studies that indicate these trends are changing. As American audiences continue to grow, so does the proportion of global Internet users. Pew Internet indicates that over 90% of American Adults own cell phones. Meeker and Wu estimate global Internet at only 34%, but they demonstrate that global usage has grown 8% since last year and exponential growth is predicted for the future. This growth rate has been confirmed by The World Bank.

The changing technological landscape can also be witnessed by the trends in game development. Digital technology is becoming more affordable every year, and digital games are migrating rapidly to mobile platforms. Developers who produce and publish to mobile platforms have a broader audience. Consequently, more of the world will have access to games this century.

In his book “Guns, Germs and Steel,” Jared Diamond illustrated how the smallest shift in the tide between cultures can have profound consequences. The introduction of a few guns to the Maori natives of the Cheatham Islands led to the slaughter of the Moriori in New Zealand. While games may not be ubiquitous, the availability of mobile technology will put games in the hands of a significant number of users. Democratization does not equate with ubiquity, but there will be enough users to influence other aspects of culture.

The cotton gin revolutionized production in America, which had far reaching consequences for the world. I use the word “revolutionized” judiciously because the cotton gin is viewed as creating a demand for slavery in the American South, which eventually led to the American Civil War. Similarly, one need not be a direct consumer of digital games to be profoundly influenced by their design principles.

Noted game designer and scholar Eric Zimmerman published a manifesto on the future of culture. Keeping in step with the content, the article was published on Kotaku, a videogame blog, rather than an academic journal. The document, “Manifesto: The 21st Century Will Be Defined By Games,” is a preview to his forthcoming book from MIT Press entitled “The Gameful World.” Zimmerman postulates that the 21^st century will be defined by games in what he calls the Ludic Century. He indicates that games are as ancient as culture itself, but digital technology gives games a new role in gating the control of information.

…digital technology gives games a new role in gating the control of information.

Whereas the 20^th century was marked by increasing access to information, the Ludic Century will be marked by an interactive relationship to information. Digital designers and media mavens will play a new role, inviting users to play with information in an unprecedented way. There will also be a democratization of digital experiences similar to that of other industries. Game design will cross all boundaries of art, science, education, and media. Zimmerman states that games are complex systems that might allow us to understand, synthesize, and digest other more complex systems.

The CUNY Games Network is excited to have Eric Zimmerman participating as a featured panelist at the CUNY Games Fest conference in 2014.

There is clearly a need to infuse programming literacy into the Common Core. Disciplines that traditionally reside outside of the domain of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) are slowly becoming more technical as the conduit between practitioner and audience migrates to the Internet and mobile devices. Within STEM, those who acquire programming skills are at advantage now that datasets are growing more complicated (e.g., The Brain Initiative). As a case study, consider one of my friends, a postdoctoral fellow studying parasites at Rockefeller University. She spent her evenings this summer steeped in a Python programming language course so that she could learn how to integrate the many software bundles that are now required for her to analyze data. Another friend is a full time programmer for a molecular biology lab at Columbia University. And yet another is a programmer working as a technical designer for the fashion industry. Few of us have to look far to find an acquaintance that is a programmer or had to learn to code to support a non-technical field.

Learning to code is currently a long and difficult path, but it doesn’t have to be. With proper instruction and good tools, programming should be no more complicated than learning a language. What if the act of learning to program was a game itself? Rob Lockhart reviews the current state of affairs in teaching kids to program using games. He also touches on the other tools that teach programming to kids, but the list is not intended to be comprehensive.