USC’s Swain: Get Scientific, Succeed Like The Wright Bros

Author: by N. Evan Van Zelfden, Staff

Speaking at the recent Dutch Festival of Games in Utrecht was USC Interactive Media Division co-director Chris Swain - whose school has helped develop notable game projects such as fl0w, PMOG, and The Night Journey. In his discussion at the Netherlands-based conference, Swain gave a thought-provoking talk in which he urged developers to make use of more scientific methods in game design. Swain intriguingly illustrated his extended metaphor in his conference lecture using the example of aeronautics – with the implication that if the Wright Brothers had acted more "creatively," flight may not have been achieved. An Indie Approach To Science “I believe we can achieve breakthroughs in our community through adopting...scientific methods,” Swain told an audience of developers and academics. “You can apply this to anything. And when you apply it to airplanes, you come across the story of the Wright Brothers from Dayton, Ohio, that’s way out there – they were very indie.” He stepped back to provide context for the Wright example. “Most of the aviation at the time was here in Europe, especially in France," he pointed out. "And these guys out in the middle of Ohio started thinking about how to make a flying machine, and then started applying the scientific method.” “They built a wind tunnel, and they were measuring the effect of lift on different kinds of materials, different shapes with wind running through them. And they would take their shapes, and measure how the lift worked, they would make a hypothesis and a conclusion." “And then they would go out and apply what they learned through scientific method, to the machine.” Creating Process In An Inconsistent Field Swain differentiated the Wright approach to that of other would-be aviators. “If you look at the other aviators drawings from the time, they weren’t this scientific. They didn’t have the benefit of these measurements that were going into the process," he explained, "and that’s why the Wright Brothers were able to do what they could do. He related the process to two concepts also familiar to game designers: “They understood these things, and the prototyped them before they actually built them. Testing, testing to see what would happen in conditions.” “The Wright Brothers brought their machine to France," he went on. "The French saw this, and there was a famous quote: ‘We are beaten.’ Which, with French character, isn’t something I think they’d readily want to admit.” Historical Impact The Wright process-driven attitude had wide repercussions. “The whole community adopted their style of designing – meaning using a more scientific approach to designing – and the field took off," Swain said. "[It took off] so rapidly that we were able to go from the Wright Brothers plane, to landing on the moon, in about sixty years, which is just about unheard of rapidity in production.” He then summed his whole comparison, urging more work on careful preparation and prototyping, up: “Obviously, this is all analogous to a plea for our [game] community to start the methods that help us advance.”