Feature: 'The Designer's Notebook: A Few Remarks on Creative Play'

In today's main feature article, Designer's Notebook columnist and game design veteran Ernest Adams points out the importance of game creativity as the market expands beyond the "hardcore" gamer, proposing a taxonomy of the types of creative videogame play. Adams starts his column out by suggesting: "As game designers, we spend most of our effort on competitive play, whether it's player-versus-machine, player-versus-player, team-versus-team, or any of the other possible competition modes that we can use. Many of our discussions about core mechanics and balancing are essentially about the design problems of competitive play. We concentrate on competition because that is the essence of the oldest games, from Go to the Olympics of ancient Greece. It's also what our traditional market, the hardcore gamer, likes most. But what about creative play? It doesn't get as much attention." You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject (free registration required.)