During the past decade, interest has developed in the ways in which digital games can be linked with education. Game-informed pedagogy draws on the study of games to increase engagement within learning settings. The trappings of games – colourful avatars, bright badges and staged challenges – are not enough in themselves to promote learning. However, the practices of gaming can be effectively applied within learning contexts through the ‘affinity group’: a group of people who use 'smart tools', such as interactive maps, to pursue a particular passion. Affinity groups are heterogenous in age and expertise; within these groups people both mentor and are mentored, knowledge is both distributed and dispersed, learning is self-initiated but also aided; and everyone is still a learner.