(...)
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