In a form I’m filling out this is a option and I’m not sure what it is asking? Do you have any ideas on what these mean? See, its for a game design course(I know everyone hates them ;)) and I have to pick my top three interest and experience in(Displaying examples of these three):
Drawing/painting ability
Game criticism and analysis
Digital art
Game narratives
Character design
Rules and play balance design
Environment design
Critical thinking about games
Modelling and other experimentation
Interest in the future of games
The ones I don’t get* are “Interest in the future of games” and “Critical thinking about games”? What would a piece of work displaying these be?
Critical thinking about games could involve levels of violence, blood etc and the morals in which they bestow. Therefore thinking on both sides, which “Oh games are great” but with “But the blood is unnecessary”. My personal idea of this is the overloading of swearing in GTA, in which I think critically as I find it unnecessary. I think that covers that aspect.
As for interest, I’d assume that would have to do with new technologies allowing better game-play experience, maybe like the Occulus. But not too sure
More than likely they are referring to following the looking at games as whole. Sort asking if you are interested in making a game specifically versus working on games or in the game industry in general. Given that list, it would seem to a way to determine what role you are interested in. The two you listed would be sort of a “producer” career track.
Games that help people make better decisions. DSS - Decision Support System games. There are a couple of toolkits which you provide the environment, variables, simulate the conditions. These kind of things are VERY, VERY, VERY expensive. Used by managers to simulate or ask questions which have no easy answer. Chemical plant simulation, Flight safety programs, Hazardous chemical disaster simulation, Environment and decision simulation.
Interest in the future of games:
What modern technology can be used to make games. Geo-tagging, Job gamification - where you earn XP points for each task in the office done.
There is a couple of toolkits which track XP gained for teach mundane task done - e.g., XP points given when successfully helping a customer, closing down the Restaurant successfully, XP gained when meeting sales deadlines.
Alternate reality where you wear VR and full body suite and walk around an empty warehouse simulating walking around Skyrim or MMO game.
Customer service gamification - gain XP points for good service. At the end of every week the highest XP gets extra wages.
Helpdesk gamification - gain XP points for correct answers. At the end of every year, the guys who give the most effort to help their customer gets awarded.
There are also negative aspects of gamification:
membership points to Casino or Adult clubs…
bonus points for drinking too much of certain brand of beer, brand of whisky,…
frequent buyer cards for buying cigarettes…
There is quite amusing cross-over from games to real-world:
Sally’s Salon Gamification kit - equip your salon with gamification where hairdressers and hair stylists can gain XP points, level-up, and so on.
Frequent members can then gain points for visiting a certain hair-salon…
Uhhhh… Is that the same as Thinking Critically About Games, because Critical Thinking Games matches your description, but Thinking critically about games seems like a whole other ballpark. Or am I wrong?
I picked it up as not so much a specific type of game genre in itself but rather judging games on a critical level.
There are two genres - one to help make decision-making in real-world and fun-simulation games.
The decision-making process is to brainstorm ideas to get out of sticky situation or training staff to handle situations which arise during their course of work.
One of the most discussed gamification is the stock market - how and why did the stock-market meltdown at 2010 happen? There are two theories of thought - behaviourist and rational thinking. Rational thinking economist who favor Keynes principles are dead and unworkable.
Every stock market simulation using Keynes policies lead to bubble economics, as seen in the last decade. Lots of hot money, lots of bubbles. Many people losing their jobs and houses due to poor economic policies.
If you want to invest in something, forget Keynes principles. Embrace the dissident economists who were side-lined.
Umm, I think eskimoejoe is getting confused between games which encourage you to think critically about the world (“critical thinking games”) and critical thinking about games.
Critical thinking about games is considering the wider environment that games operate in and what they say about us and our culture. My favourite critical thinker about games is Ian Bogost http://www.bogost.com/. Sometimes he talks rubbish but he can be pretty interesting and entertaining.
Here’s him discussing “Animal Crossing”: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/199599/
I’m inclined to agree with zombiegorilla. Critical thinking about games is essay/dissertation material. Combined with interest in the future of games, these two are very much a lead into producer / designer type roles.
Critical thinking could be seen to involve identifying strengths and weaknesses in proposals, planning, implementation, even business models and other aspects of development that affect the final game as a product. If you find yourself procrastinating over and pruning ideas and obsessing over the bigger picture as well as the details, you’re probably a critical thinker.
Interest in the future of games is related to some extent, as you’re well served if you can apply critical thinking to how games, platforms and the people that play games, will evolve - again a lot of it is about business models these days (because they’re important if you want to get your game into peoples’ hands), but they’re also about genres that haven’t happened yet. Do you live with your ear to the ground?
I’m over-simplifying, and there will be other interpretations, but that’s as I see it anyway.
Want an example of “critical thinking about games”? For a practical perspective on how to build a game with Flow, see my book chapter, “Design Better Games! Flow, Motivation, and Fun”. For an academic slant, see my paper, “Why Games Work - the Science of Learning”, which connects the elements of Flow to the science of how humans learn (won an award, 2011).
