links for 2010-03-09

Adri­an Hon takes a long hard look at the poten­tial of per­sua­sive games for sav­ing the world. What sticks with ne the most is his con­cern that the focus on reward mech­a­nisms pre­vents peo­ple from pur­su­ing activ­i­ties for the sheer joy of doing them, which I’ve always felt is the essence of play.

Dan C wax­es lyri­cal­ly about an indie strat­e­gy game and in the process talks about indie fan cul­ture: “The only peo­ple that we, as fans, can claim with 100% cer­tain­ty are wor­thy of our appre­ci­a­tion are small teams of inde­pen­dent developers.”