Welcome to the eighth Dau Barcelona Games Festival. This festival is for both families and experienced players. For some, it is an introduction to a world that is not always well-known, and for others, it is the best place to meet other players and to find out what’s new in the market.
Who doesn't like to play? A lot of times, we don't do it, or perhaps we've forgotten how to. But when we get invited to play, we always do. We play for many reasons, and when we play, we are more equal, more free.
Human beings have engaged in games for millennia. Because we like to, and because there are people who create games. Dau Barcelona focuses on the creativity of game inventors, from international recognised and Dau Barcelona award-winning guest creators, to those new creators showing off their prototypes in the festival spaces. We play because there are publishers and shopkeepers; without them, there wouldn't be games, and there wouldn't be a festival, either.
Dau Barcelona is a city-wide festival. It isn't confined to Fabra i Coats, it is scattered across Barcelona, making its presence felt at schools, civic centres, old people's centres, in neighbourhood squares, and even at the La Mercè Festival. What if all of us, together, made Barcelona a more and more game-oriented city?
Among all of the activities that will take place at Dau Barcelona on 23 and 24 November, I would like to highlight the training workshop for primary and secondary school teachers on the importance of games in the classroom, which we have organised in collaboration with the Barcelona Education Consortium. An opportunity to introduce the great educational value that games can bring to the classroom.
In your hands, you have the festival activities programme. In addition, we wanted to use this programme to invite you to reflect on games and play from different points of view, which we have presented in a careful selection of articles and interviews. I hope you take the time to give it a thought!
Joan Subirats Humet
Sixth Deputy Mayor.
Area for Culture, Education and Science
President of the Barcelona Institute of Culture