> I take serious issue with the description of games as useless.
I figured some might. Try to charitably understand why I chose to emphasize with that word. Yes, obviously, playing games provides all sorts of meaningful things to the player. As I said, playing games is intrinsically rewarding.
But what most games don't do is provide extrinsic utility. Playing a videogame does not pay your mortgage, fix your leaky sink, cure your halitosis, or get you an A in class. (Ignoring professional game playing for money, of course.)
Your electricity company's website can be a slow, bug-ridden heap of PHP 1.0 garbage and you will still use it because it lets you pay their bill and keep your lights on. A videogame has no such luxury. If using the game itself is not enjoyable, you have no users. That means good game designers are very well trained in making things people want to use. That's a great skill for anyone who wants to design beloved things.
> The idea we should capture the way games build tangible experiences and apply them to “useful software” is to misunderstand both what makes games useful and software that achieves a task.
There is definitely an important aspect of games that cannot be harnessed by useful software. A key, perhaps the fundamental thing that makes play play is safety. There is a lower bound to how much harm playing a game poorly can do. That keeps the stakes low, which allows you to get into a freer, more exploratory mindset.
Obviously, the app you use to pay your mortgage cannot offer that freeing sense of delight. While that safety is what makes games games, that is not all that makes games enjoyable.
> Gamification is swimming in the shallow end of game design.
Oh dear, I certainly didn't have "gamification" and all the sleazy things that has been used for in mind, though I can see how what I said was ambiguous regarding that.
Maybe a more direct way of stating what I was getting at is that game designers have a greater appreciation of usability than many others. Every tool has some mixture of utility (what it can do) and usability (what it makes easy/enjoyable to do). If a tool has important utility, users will suffer using regardless of its usability. If a university's slow automated phone system is the only way to register classes, well, I guess you're gonna sit on hold for three hours. But you won't like it.
Since games have no utility, they must have usability. Usability ("fun") is foundational in a way that it isn't in other fields. And I think there's a lot to be learned from game designers about how they approach that.
How about logic/puzzle games? They train our brains in finding patterns and that built ‘muscle’ can be applied in non gaming areas. They also serve as a springboard into software development for many.
I think the danger is overindulging and the gamification of everything, but in small to moderate amounts games could provide some value. Leavig aside computer games, I think playing in general has a very good value in learning.
> But what most games don't do is provide extrinsic utility. Playing a videogame does not pay your mortgage, fix your leaky sink, cure your halitosis, or get you an A in class. (Ignoring professional game playing for money, of course.)
Games can help you practice interpersonal communication skills, teamwork and coordination, problem solving, and fine motor skills. These may very well help you with your work or leaky sink in the future. Games can also help inure you to failure, and provide some perhaps necessary escapeism to improve your mental health (perhaps more important to work on than your halitosis!). Or help provide that social connection that turns into a job offer.
Playing cow clicker all day - sure, that's probably not all that extrinsicly useful. But you're painting with an overly large brush IMO. And there's perhaps a reason you'll have a damn difficult time finding anyone playing cow clicker all day ;).
> Your electricity company's website can be a slow, bug-ridden heap of PHP 1.0 garbage and you will still use it because it lets you pay their bill and keep your lights on.
Or I might pay by mail or phone instead. Or use my bank's auto-pay setup. It's less a matter of utility, and more a matter of competition.
Games have a huge entertainment industry they're competing with - lots of choice. It wasn't always this competitive - people enjoyed playing Pong on the Atari back in the day. There's plenty of "extrinsicly useful" software I avoid - yes, even when I'm earning $$$ to pay that mortgage - in favor of better alternatives. Your electricity company's website probably has few alternatives, but even then there might be some.
Oh yes absolutely UX design can learn a lot from games.
VR applications are riddled with games folks both because the tech requirements are the same. And also because the interaction design really benefits from the way games use space and deal with limited control input.
I still fundamentally disagree that games don’t provide people with external utility. It’s a popular assumption because they don’t necessarily do anything obvious or provide you with something tangible to others. There are plenty of emotional journeys you can take, creativity to engage in and skills you can learn. My younger brother for example was really helped in learning to read by playing Monkey Island.
An ephemeral word processor actually sounds like something that could provide cathartic release. It might not be as useless as you think.
I figured some might. Try to charitably understand why I chose to emphasize with that word. Yes, obviously, playing games provides all sorts of meaningful things to the player. As I said, playing games is intrinsically rewarding.
But what most games don't do is provide extrinsic utility. Playing a videogame does not pay your mortgage, fix your leaky sink, cure your halitosis, or get you an A in class. (Ignoring professional game playing for money, of course.)
Your electricity company's website can be a slow, bug-ridden heap of PHP 1.0 garbage and you will still use it because it lets you pay their bill and keep your lights on. A videogame has no such luxury. If using the game itself is not enjoyable, you have no users. That means good game designers are very well trained in making things people want to use. That's a great skill for anyone who wants to design beloved things.
> The idea we should capture the way games build tangible experiences and apply them to “useful software” is to misunderstand both what makes games useful and software that achieves a task.
There is definitely an important aspect of games that cannot be harnessed by useful software. A key, perhaps the fundamental thing that makes play play is safety. There is a lower bound to how much harm playing a game poorly can do. That keeps the stakes low, which allows you to get into a freer, more exploratory mindset.
Obviously, the app you use to pay your mortgage cannot offer that freeing sense of delight. While that safety is what makes games games, that is not all that makes games enjoyable.
> Gamification is swimming in the shallow end of game design.
Oh dear, I certainly didn't have "gamification" and all the sleazy things that has been used for in mind, though I can see how what I said was ambiguous regarding that.
Maybe a more direct way of stating what I was getting at is that game designers have a greater appreciation of usability than many others. Every tool has some mixture of utility (what it can do) and usability (what it makes easy/enjoyable to do). If a tool has important utility, users will suffer using regardless of its usability. If a university's slow automated phone system is the only way to register classes, well, I guess you're gonna sit on hold for three hours. But you won't like it.
Since games have no utility, they must have usability. Usability ("fun") is foundational in a way that it isn't in other fields. And I think there's a lot to be learned from game designers about how they approach that.