lucas blair - how we are holding our community and our games back

How we are holding our community and our games back

Lucas Blair, PhD

What do I mean by holding back?

Not using data to validate our claims.

Not using data to validate our claims.

Solutions

• Keep your promises manageable• Plan your testing and data collection like it

was for an academic study.• And share your successes and failures with

the community

We still focus on knowledge too much.

Solutions

• Make games that are higher up on Bloom’s taxonomy

• Use a taxonomy to plan• Test on tasks that require knowledge. Not

the knowledge

We don’t let players fail enough.

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Solutions

• Scale difficulty a little higher• Make it about the player getting better not

about them proving themselves• Celebrate failure.

We are too controlling.

We are too controlling.

Solutions

• Think about what task player is missing out on for each new system

• Build systems that reflect what you want to accomplish

• Randomized, nonlinear, player generated content

• Give players choice

We stop at gameplay.

We stop at gameplay.

Hey y’all! It’s me again.

We stop at gameplay.

Solutions

• Consider the whole experience and not just game play

• When appropriate ask the players to contribute

We only make games.

We only make games.

Solutions

• Always think about the context your games are played in

• When you can make that context better

We hype VR and AR and forget RP IR.

Solutions

• Don’t forget RP

How else can we improve?• Backup your claims• Go beyond knowledge• Let them fail• Don’t be so controlling• Don’t stop at gameplay• Don’t just make games• Don’t forget RP

@LucasBlair @SeriousPlayConflucas@littlebirdgames.com

@LucasBlair @SeriousPlayConflucas@littlebirdgames.com

Thank you.