Lost Garden: The Blind Men and the Elephant: Thoughts on an integrative framework for understanding games
I am starting to think that I should just set up a feed so that all of Danc’s posts on Lost Garden show up here in-line. The latest: The Blind Men and the Elephant: Thoughts on an integrative framework for understanding games basically concludes that we should be using altruism as our core framework for why we make games.
Just yesterday I answered one of a set of interview questions this way:
You’re a self-described “idealist on a virtual crusade.” What, exactly, does this mean? Are you (forgive the wacky pun) questing for the phattest lewt of MMORPG design? What’s the ultimate goal of this crusade?
It really just means that I have high hopes for what online worlds can be and do for people. Over the last decade and more, I’ve seen them make such big differences in people’s lives that I’m a true believer in their power to not only be incredibly entertaining, but also do more: teach people, bring people together, and empower them.
Sometimes people think that means that I’m not interested in the game side of things, but that’s not it at all… I happen to believe much the same of games in general.
4 Responses to “Lost Garden: The Blind Men and the Elephant: Thoughts on an integrative framework for understanding games”
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Hmm. I read it not as focusing on altruism but rather as a pep talk for why we should try to create our games as “teams” and try to integrate and understand other points of views that other types of people bring to these projects.
Reading it I wasn’t sure how the “New Product Development” framework would do much for this. It seems like one of a handful of paradigms for creating a product, and all the infighting still comes out in the details and specific steps. Is the project ready for beta or not? I.e., can we move onto the next step in the NDP yet? Well, the businessman is going to have his own religion about that versus that of the craftsman.
Heh, maybe we need a common framework for understanding blog posts! 🙂
If not “altruism” then perhaps buying into the concept of Godin’s “Idea Virus” – which maybe helps tie you two interpretations together. A bit. Maybe.