The Superstruct Story begins today!

What does the world of 2019 look like? Find out now! The Superstruct Story begins today.

It's September 22, 2019, and the five superthreat videos are LIVE. (produced by the amazing Emmy-award nominated Kiyash Monsef!) Watch the five superthreat videos now -- follow this link to the Superstruct sneak preview site, or just watch the embedded videos below! See news from the future, and find out exactly what dangers and challenges we face with Quarantine, Ravenous, Power Struggle, Outlaw Planet and Generation Exile.

Superthreat #1: QUARANTINE

Superthreat #2: RAVENOUS

Superthreat #3: POWER STRUGGLE

Superthreat #4: OUTLAW PLANET

Superthreat #5: GENERATION EXILE

After you watch the videos, dig deeper... the Global Extinction Awareness Report is live as well. Read the GEAS report!

Here's a sneak preview...

The Final Threat:

Outputs of the Global Extinction Awareness System's
2019 Petabyte-Scale Global Simulation

Overview

The human species has a long history of overcoming tremendous obstacles, often coming out stronger than before. Indeed, some anthropologists argue that human intelligence emerged as the consequence of the last major ice age, a period of enormous environmental stress demanding flexibility, foresight and creativity on the part of the small numbers of early Homo sapiens. Historically, those who have prophesied doom for human civilization have been proven wrong, time and again, by the capacity of our species to both adapt to and transform our conditions.

It is in this context that the Global Extinction Awareness System (GEAS) offers its forecast of the likely extinction of humankind within the next quarter-century....

And join the Facebook group to disuss which Superthreat you plan to adopt first, and more! (~500 members and counting...)

See you again on October 6, 2008 (two weeks from today) when gameplay goes lives -- and we take this scenario and start superstructing!

UPDATE: Lol, Superstruct players are AWESOME. Here's an amazing reply to the Outlaw Planet superthreat video... that was FAST!

On my mind this week - awesome things other people said

Here are some awesome things I heard or read other people say this week.... things that really click with how I'm thinking about game design these days.

"One day we will look back with embarrassment on this era when all of our virtual experiences were trapped behind a screen. This advance will have great implications for the role of games within society, and the wider possibilities of tangible game experiences could make the word 'game' insufficient to describe what we are doing." - game design legend Masaya Matsuura, on how the videogame industry needs to involve into more environmental and physical gaming

"It's all fun and games... until somebody changes the world." - Austin Hill, co-founder of Akoha, talking about the potential for reality-based games to change the way we go about our real lives

"I want more out of life than just Experience Points. I want meaning too." - Ian Bogost, games theorist + designer, also talking about why reality-based games you play in your real life need more than metrics

"The situations mirror real-life problems and let us gamers feel as if we're accomplishing something, even though it's completely in a fake world." - Jason Mitchaeli, Live Action Role Playing gamer, talking about how LARPs can make you a happier person in real life.

"The day before a major breakthrough, it's a crazy idea. That's by definition what makes it a breakthrough. No one else thought it would work. To make a genuine breakthrough, you have to find things that have a high probability of failure to work on." X-Prize founder Peter Diamandis, talking about why the best thing to work on is something that most people believe is impossible.

These great quotes are just bouncing around in my head! Love them.

Whoah -- I just got rabbit holed to my own game - UPDATED

UPDATE: Apparently, lots of people want to get a head-start on the game. Join the Superstruct Facebook Group to start meeting other players and inventing your future selves! And as always, check out the amazing dinner 2019 stories -- now counting in the hundreds -- that just wow me everytime I read one.

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As you know, Superstruct hasn't launched yet. (Stay tuned -- the story starts September 22, the game starts October 6.) But people are already playing Superstruct. I mean REALLY playing.

I'm working from home today. Just got this email from a colleague at the Institute for the Future:

“we received a strange package in the mail today. Addressed to SuperStruct, return address 'fragile'. Inside are 8 separate envelopes containing small glass bottles and a letter from The 2019 Weather Project asking us to 'empty the contents of the bottle' - air from england - and entering our own sample. Then we can send it back to them for a tracking system. The website is the 1st superstructure! Really cool!!”

Indeed, if you go to the 2019 Weather Project, you'll find that an unknown Superstruct player has already launched an in-game weather data crowd sourcing project and is actually sending out physical kits.

TOTALLY INSANE!!! I was rabbit holed to my own game!! (I'll update this post with photos of the rabbit hole when I get to the office next week.)

Go Superstruct players… I don't know you yet, but I already love you.

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In the meantime, allow me to introduce you to our amazing team of honorary game masters for Superstruct:

• Tim Kring, creator of the NBC TV series HEROES
• Warren Ellis, superhero comic book author and novelist
• Tara Hunt, social network expert and author of The Whuffie Factor
• Bruce Sterling, science fiction writer and essayist
• Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and Wikia
• Ze Frank, funniest person on the Internet
• Chris DiBona, Open Source program manager for Google
• Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media
• and more surprise guests to come!
  

They'll be giving awards out to their favorite superstructures at the end of the game. Can you guess which honorary game masters are giving out the following: the "Pandora's Box award", "The Greatest Amount of Soul Award", and the "Most Heroic Award"?

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Discover Magazine has a great story by Eliza Strickland about Superstruct out today. You can read it online: "Forecasting the Future May be a Matter of Fun and Games."

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While you're waiting for game launch, I guess you can make like our 2019 Weather player and start playing (!!!) Or you can visit just the website now and request an alert email when we launch.