Game Design as an Autonomous Research Subject

Pedro Pinto Neves,Nelson Zagalo

doi:10.3390/info12090367

Abstract

This paper examines the methods and systems of game design from the standpoint of existing method proposals failing to establish a common basis for systematizing design knowledge, which this paper aims to help resolve. Game design has often been subsumed by game development and associated disciplines, and game design methodology has often been subsumed by game analysis. This paper reviews related work in defining game design as an autonomous research subject and then divides the methods and systems of game design into complementary methods and core methods, with only the latter, consisting chiefly of design patterns, attempting to systematize how game design knowledge is generated. Seminal game patterns have been descriptive rather than -prescriptive and so have failed to find the requisite practitioner adoption to fulfill their role as a living method. One recent pattern approach has sought to resolve this issue by promoting pattern usage generally over the adoption of a particular language. This paper outlines an alternate and possibly complementary approach of a novel, practical basis for game design literacy for helping core methods work as a basis for systematizing game design knowledge. The proposed basis sacrifices descriptiveness to prescriptiveness to shape methods in that direction.

Highlights

One of the most salient features of games as an object of study and a field of practice is their interdisciplinarity and multimodality [1] (p. 89)
Given the systemic and self-motivated nature of play in games, they beg for a formal common design vocabulary, such as general design patterns or similar, with sufficiently wide recognition to support the systematic advancement of game design knowledge across the entire field of game design
This paper argues that there is a gap in methodological support for game design, traces the nature of this gap by reviewing some of the better-known game design methods, highlights certain obstacles to game design practice resulting from the gap, and proposes a prescriptive foundational game design principle that can help improve the situation

Summary

Introduction

One of the most salient features of games as an object of study and a field of practice is their interdisciplinarity and multimodality [1] (p. 89). 171), which, to a certain extent, naturally turns games into black-boxes in terms of the processes by which games produce their particular effects on their players. All of this has left game design in an awkward methodological position. Given the systemic and self-motivated nature of play in games, they beg for a formal common design vocabulary, such as general design patterns or similar, with sufficiently wide recognition to support the systematic advancement of game design knowledge across the entire field of game design. The same goes for the use of game design patterns as a basis for systematizing game design knowledge

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion