MENU

DEA LABO Public Play Design Lab

Rewriting the Rules of Society Through Games. Rewriting the Rules of Society Through Games. of Society Through Games.

We don’t just gamify social issues—we make society itself a playable system.

DEA LABO is a research and implementation lab dedicated to reimagining public engagement through the logic of games—what we call “Public Play Design.”

CONCEPT

A World Where
Public Play Design
Is the Norm

APP LAUNCH

DEA SPECIAL AGENT

Get Active with DEA Lab!
Verify your DEP balance to become a "DEA Special Agent"!

  • Your "DEA Special Agent" rank is determined by your DEP balance.
  • Earn points based on your "DEA Special Agent" rank.

Please Note:
Points (DEA Special Agent Points) are community points and have no monetary value. Please be aware that this is not "staking" for the purpose of earning investment yields.
These points are utilized to energize the community of members dedicated to growing the DEA business together.

DEA SPECIAL AGENT
01.

The World as Envisioned by DEA LABO

Many initiatives that combine social issues and gamification stop at surface-level enhancements—adding points, badges, or other decorative elements to existing behaviors.

DEA LABO is looking beyond that.

What kind of worldview sets the stage?
What exactly are we trying to "conquer"?
Who takes on which roles—and why?
What rewards and narratives have the power to turn participation from a duty into a shared thrill?

What kind of public values or economic ecosystems could emerge from that play history?

We are not merely using games to “solve” social issues.
We are redesigning the structure of society itself—through the logic of games.

DEA LABO is a space for designing and experimenting with that transformation.

02.

What is Public Play Design?

Public Play Design is not about simply adding game elements to existing behaviors— it's about redesigning society itself to be playable as a game.

It transforms rules, roles, rewards, and narratives into meaningful experiences,
so that the accumulation of play gradually and quietly rewrites the shape of real-world systems and public life.

Through this process, participants in the game become collaborators in social change.
Public Play Design is a form of social design that assumes and enables this transformation from the outset.

03.

The Concept of the “Public Gamer”

It’s perfectly fine if the entry point is point-based rewards or personal gain.
Most people join because something “seems rewarding” or “looks fun.”

But once Public Play Design starts to take effect,
a new type of player emerges—one who keeps playing with genuine enthusiasm.

They take initiative without being asked, sustain community activity,
and collaborate with a clear sense that “this play is making society better.”

At DEA LABO, we call this select group the Public Gamers.
And we believe that the true core of Public Play Design lies in
designing the conditions for their spontaneous emergence—the social tipping point.

FUNCTIONS

The Three Core Functions
of DEA LABO

01. R&D & Consulting — Designing and Implementing Social Games

We transform social and organizational challenges—often perceived as “troublesome problems”—into strategic social issues to be solved, and redesign them through the framework of Public Play Design.

01 Issue Design
Clarifying core issues and reframing them as solvable challenges.

02 Game, UX, and Incentive Design (including Web3)
Designing systems, experiences, and incentive structures that drive sustained engagement.

03 Small-Scale Field Experiments
Testing and validating concepts in real environments.

04 Business Development & Scaling
Expanding models that demonstrate strong results into sustainable operations.

Rather than one-off campaigns, we provide integrated R&D-driven consulting aimed at building long-term social gaming infrastructure that continually generates public value.

02. Media & Knowledge Hub — Evidence Base for Public Play

What is happening inside Public Play Design?
Why do players move—and keep moving—this much?

DEA LABO opens the traffic to these questions, functioning as a media hub that makes the underlying dynamics visible.

01 Thought Leadership by Naoto Yoshida and Kozo Yamada
Sharing foundational concepts, perspectives, and long-term visions.

02 Interviews & Dialogues
Conversations with researchers, practitioners, and creators across fields.

03 Case Studies from Experimental Projects
Including picTrée and other field experiments that test Public Play Design in practice.

We archive the insights, breakthroughs, and failures that emerge through experimentation and turn them into a growing body of knowledge for Public Play Design—feeding directly into the design of the next generation of social games.

03. Community & Programs — A Hub for Social Players

Based at SIGNAL, a social art gallery in Toranomon, we host a monthly salon exploring the possibilities of Public Play Design.

- Lead Talk: Kozo Yamada (Co-CEO, DEA)
- Curator: Junshiro Kameyama (SIGNING / Creative Director)
- Moderator: Katsunori Namifusa (CEO, World Eggs / Storyteller)

Each session welcomes guests from corporations, municipalities, academia, and the creative sector to engage in open discussions and live experiments around a central question:
How can society be made playable?

From this forum emerge new field experiments and the seeds of the next social games.

ACTION

Which world shall we tackle together?

DEA LABO is a laboratory for partners who seek to redesign their businesses and social issues as “social games.”

Let’s begin with the world you want to tackle.