(...) > The other high-light for me I had already mailed you. It was the keynote > speech by Jenova Chen [3]. Jenova is a game designer and some of the > most remarkable games he designed were Flow [4], Flower [5] and Journey > [6]. Especially the design principle of Journey impressed me most. So > Jenova said in online games in most cases gamers try to kill each other > or try to group with each other to kill something. And he thought this > is a very poor social interaction. He thinks that most games explore > only one emotion: the power, to be a superhero is in most cases the > motive of a game. But the human emotion is more complex. To be able to > explore and induce the complex emotion of an attendee for example is the > difference between a good movie and a bad movie, or a good book and a > bad book. He thinks that the emotion of want to be powerful is a very > adolescent one, that is why most mature adults won't play games any > more, because they are beyond that level of emotion. So he has two > design principles, the first one is to explore the emotional > possibilities of a game. The second one is the to create a special > environment of communication between the gamers. He says that internet > (game, forums, Twitter, whatever<and I can add mailing-list, talk pages > and villege pumps>) are mostly hostile. And he wanted to create an > environment where gamers can interact with each other, but don't have > the possibility to be hostile to each other. So for example by designing > Journey he decided to not give the gamers the possibility to chat with > each other, but only to interact with each other in a non verbal way. > > When he was talking I could not help as to think about Wikipedians and > how they interact with each other. Naturally, language is the essential > of our projects we cannot avoid Wikipedians talking with each other. But > then again, people always thought that games can only be successful if > they are violent, and Jenova proved that this is not the case. And what > his speech told me is, even when we always think that something have to > be done in a certain way and only in that way, there are always chances > to explore other possibilities. And we should not stop to think about > those trying and being innovative, and being innovative in an > unconventional way. > > This is why I think we should invite him as a keynote speaker of > Wikimania, or at least for the staff retreat. And why I was so excited > after his speech that I mailed you immediately.
Ting, thank you for posting this. This can actually go beyond the village pumps - it can even affect ways we design our user interface (like making scripting and templating more available to the rest of us). I would really happy to meet Jenova in Washington, if possible. //Saper _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
