(...)
The other high-light for me I had already mailed you.
It was the keynote
speech by Jenova Chen [3]. Jenova is a game designer and some of the
most remarkable games he designed were Flow [4], Flower [5] and Journey
[6]. Especially the design principle of Journey impressed me most. So
Jenova said in online games in most cases gamers try to kill each other
or try to group with each other to kill something. And he thought this
is a very poor social interaction. He thinks that most games explore
only one emotion: the power, to be a superhero is in most cases the
motive of a game. But the human emotion is more complex. To be able to
explore and induce the complex emotion of an attendee for example is the
difference between a good movie and a bad movie, or a good book and a
bad book. He thinks that the emotion of want to be powerful is a very
adolescent one, that is why most mature adults won't play games any
more, because they are beyond that level of emotion. So he has two
design principles, the first one is to explore the emotional
possibilities of a game. The second one is the to create a special
environment of communication between the gamers. He says that internet
(game, forums, Twitter, whatever<and I can add mailing-list, talk pages
and villege pumps>) are mostly hostile. And he wanted to create an
environment where gamers can interact with each other, but don't have
the possibility to be hostile to each other. So for example by designing
Journey he decided to not give the gamers the possibility to chat with
each other, but only to interact with each other in a non verbal way.
When he was talking I could not help as to think about Wikipedians and
how they interact with each other. Naturally, language is the essential
of our projects we cannot avoid Wikipedians talking with each other. But
then again, people always thought that games can only be successful if
they are violent, and Jenova proved that this is not the case. And what
his speech told me is, even when we always think that something have to
be done in a certain way and only in that way, there are always chances
to explore other possibilities. And we should not stop to think about
those trying and being innovative, and being innovative in an
unconventional way.
This is why I think we should invite him as a keynote speaker of
Wikimania, or at least for the staff retreat. And why I was so excited
after his speech that I mailed you immediately.
Ting,
thank you for posting this. This can actually go beyond the village pumps
- it can even affect ways we design our user interface (like making
scripting and templating more available to the rest of us).
I would really happy to meet Jenova in Washington, if possible.
//Saper