The idea of games offering more than merely enjoyment or a competitive challenge is an idea that is gaining increasing traction in corporate circles. Companies such as Cisco and IBM already use games to develop the skills of their people and the term 'serious games' is now widely used to describe games which are principally designed for a purpose other than pure entertainment. The Strategic Futures Design group at Philips Design had been exploring this area, so when Philips Consumer Lifestyle commissioned further research into improving insight generation, this was seen as an ideal opportunity.
To play Spark, the players move counters representing different characters around the board, with each space along the way describing a certain situation. By considering the potential outcomes for the particular character and situation, a lot of genuinely creative and even 'out of the box' ideas are generated. These are used to enrich insight generation during the workshops. The game has proved so successful that there is talk of developing versions for other regions (at the moment it is targeted specifically at Europe) and also using it in other sectors within Philips.
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