[game_edu] Brenda Braithwaite's game_edu rant at GDC

[Seth Sivak]

I think it is good for designers to be able to code.  They do not need to be
"engineers" but be able to code enough to prototype their own designs.  As
soon as you add in another person the iteration loop gets much longer, and
the longer the loop the fewer iterations that can be completed.  Once the
game is out of the design phase and more into production the game design
role becomes more about problem solving than pure creativity, so at that
point it is fine to no longer code and let pure engineers create the
production level stuff.

Seth

On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 12:53 PM, jparker <jparker at ucalgary.ca> wrote:


> Interesting rant, and she certainly has credentials.

>

> Still, I don't think that game designers are necessarily excellent

> programmers. They need to understand limits and possibilities, and to be

> able to communicate well with programmers. Game design is not a programming

> task, and game development is not a software business. It's a business that

> does involve software to be sure. Computer science programs (in my

> observation over only the past 12 years) produce relatively poor game

> designers, as their focus is rather different than that of most design

> fields. It makes as much sense that a CS major could design a good chair or

> house as design a good game. And in fact, the game programmers on a team

> traditionally have relatively little input to the creative process (again,

> there are certainly exceptions, and things are changing in some places).

>

> If a game designer has a vast knowledge of programming that could be a good

> thing. I don't believe it to be a requirement. Thus the question is 'is it

> worth the time needed to become an excellent programmer'? That's hard to

> answer with authority.

>

> Jim

>

>

> On 3/3/2011 8:38 AM, Peter Border wrote:

>

>> For anybody else who's stuck at home this week.

>>

>>

>> http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/built-on-a-foundation-of-code-game-edu-rant/

>>

>> Peter Border

>> Game and Application Design Chairman

>> Globe University/Minnesota School of Business

>> 1401 West 76th St

>> Richfield, MN 55423

>> pborder at msbcollege.edu

>> ________________________________________

>>

>> _______________________________________________

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>> http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_edu

>>

>>

>>

> --

> From Hauptmann

> --------------------------------------------------------------------

> The inflated  style is itself a  kind of euphemism.  A mass of Latin

> words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and

> covering up all  the details. The  great enemy of  clear language is

> insincerity.                                          —George Orwell

>

> Dr. J. R. Parker,                    Digital Media Laboratory

> Professor of Play                    http://www.ucalgary.ca/~jparker

> Faculty of Fine Arts                 jparker@ ucalgary.ca

> University of Calgary                403-220-6784      AB606/AB611

>

>

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>




-- 
+Seth
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