Our strategy was simple; engage people who were true experts at inventing. We would create something that would both celebrate their ingenuity and help people understand Spots V Stripes.Our solution was a game creation competition, Pocketgame. Starting with just a blog, we defined the brief with the community. We agreed the games had to be:i)pocket-sizedii)for two or more playersiii)self-contained – NO techiv)made with sustainable or recycled materialsWe made all competition elements as cheaply and quickly as we could. Marketing reinvented as prototyping; a simple competition site, a twitter profile, a Facebook page, a physical stall and ‘game invention station’ for a games conference.

We ran the competition for just six weeks, and received 88 different entries from around the UK. An esteemed judging panel whittled it down to the best ten, which became just two after a public vote.

Pocketgame is a natural embodiment of the Olympics’ spirit of play and competition.

12,000 people woke up one morning to a ‘present’ box containing two prototype games. They were asked to play the games, and tell us which was best on our voting site.34% of people went online, voted, and told us more (where they played them, how they would improve them and so on).On average, games were played with three other people, which is 36,000 more players (the lowest ‘cost per player’ score across SvS), and told five people about the games reaching 66,000 more people.