We just hosted the DAC conference here at the ITU and it was, as always, great to hang out with smart, interesting folks and get to chat and hear what they are up to. There are a lot of threads that came up during the conference and you can read various coverage via links at the conference wiki. I just want to mention one theme I have been hearing more and more about recently, something termed "player-centered design."
I suppose it is still because it is being formed that I can't give you any precise definition, but I have been struck by how often I hear the term these days. It seems that it can indicate everything from what I would consider more "market research" to fascinating work (like that by Olli Sotamaa and the gang in Finland) on using cultural probes(PDF link) for game design. While I am not a designer myself I am very interested in what techniques do get used (or can get used) for the ways they tell us something about the overall landscape of user/designer relations. Of course we have lots of beta-testing & QA feedback in MMOGs (and EQ now even seems to hold a regular guild summit in which devs meet up with well-established community members to talk about the game and its future), but is there a place for things like cultural probes, participatory design, user workshops, etc. in either developing new platforms or maintaining the existing ones? Maybe this question in some ways relates to Richard's previous entry about platforms for academic research - though I think not excluding commercial ventures is important. Is anyone (any company? any commercial enterprise?) integrating something roughly called "player-centered design" into their MMOG dev processes or is that wording the kind that makes the practicing designer cringe as it seems to undermine the artistic/auteur aspect of producing a game? Microsoft's Game User Research Group seems one of the most active in trying to get players integrated into the design process (although sometimes it isn't much more than basic UI stuff) so I wonder what might the future be for extending initiatives like that to MMOGs. And, just as critical at least from my point of view, does the structure of the development process (complete with publisher demands etc.) even allow for these kinds of more exploratory or nontraditional design methods? While there seems to be growing interest in the academic community on this approach, I am curious to hear what working practioners might make of it.
[As a small sidenote, this is my final TN author post as I am turning my attention to my pro-gaming research. I look forward to continuing to follow discussions from the readers seat however ;) ]
