I can’t believe it’s nearly a year since Playful 2009 (when I got up on stage and talked about some of my favourite examples of how playful interactions & game mechanics can help encourage behaviour change). And yes, Playful 2010 is a month earlier this time around, but it’s still gone bloody fast.

Anyway, it’s Playful time this Friday, and there are some cracking speakers lined up for our delectation. And then there’s a little spot before lunch when we’re going to have a bit of a location-based-gaming smackdown.

In the words of Richard from Playful:

A few days ago, Hunter Walk from YouTube wrote a guest post on Techcrunch revealing his research into how people use the Off-The-Grid privacy feature of Foursquare, and also how Foursquare’s “pure play focus” gives it the one-up on Facebook Places.

So I thought it might be high time to announce something we’ve been working on for this year’s Playful, based on a flash in the pan survey conducted live on stage last year by one mister Russell Davies…

Has anyone ever had a dig at you for racking up points for checking into a newsagents? Or riled you for not sharing your location with your bestest online buddies? What about trying to convince you that you should only check into a place when you engage with it…like sitting down, buying something, or at least spending some time there?

So, we’re going to try and establish some rules, via the medium of audience participation. Mr Phil Gyford (who blogged about the question of Foursquare rules last year), Ms Paulina Bozek, Mr Dan Williams, and, er, me, will be given 2 minutes to persuade you why you should vote for a particular rule, expertly kept in line by ringmaster Mr Ben Hammersley. And then the audience votes. And lo as the audience hath voted it shall be LAW.

I’ve blogged about the (lack of) rules of engagement for tools like Foursquare before. So you may be able to hazard a guess as to what behaviour I’m going to be trying to lay the smackdown on.

Let’s get ready to rumble!