(2008-06-10) Games For Change

Greg Costikyan on the recent Games For Change conference.

Chris Crawford suggested that the game industry is "creatively dead, or... perfectly marketed," like he did at GDC '06. He suggested people wanting to do dramatic new things with the medium to "go over, around or under the game industry, but don't waste your time going through it." Unlike his infamous speech at GDC, his message seemed uncannily on-point for a conference where more than half those in attendence are funded academically or via non-profit foundations.

Dave Thomas (not to be confused with the Wendy's guy) and Justin Hollander talked quite sharply about the dynamic conflicts underlying the long-term development of cities, why SimCity is a poor model (hail Stalin!) and suggested ways that better Urban Planning games might be made, which reflected on more general design in an interesting way. It's like: design a game where the gameplay teaches players to design a city without designing it because it's impossible to "design" a city. Once you understand that, you will have mastered game design.