Posted
on July 4, 2010, 4:20 pm,
by Anatolie Gavriliuc,
under
Human Factor.
What is a game? Why is it fun to play games?
There is no “official”, or at least a commonly agreed-upon definition of a game. Wikipedia offers several definitions, which are all kind of true. Chris Crawford’s definition is probably the best articulated. But all of them lack the “essence” of a game, as the sum of components is not the whole in this case. It’s like defining an elephant as an animal with four pillar legs, a small tail, a trunk and big ears – while true and useful, it does not necessarily add up to an elephant.
Another piece of the puzzle lies in the “play” part. Wikipedia to the rescue again, and we see the same pattern – opinions of what play is are quite divided, and the definitions are rather generalizing than specific of what play is. Read the rest of this entry »
Human perception is logarithmic. This goes for sound, light, force, and so on. Even the stock market charts are displayed on a logarithmic scale. There is plenty of academic research in this area already, but I guess grasping change and making something meaningful of it has more sense in relative terms than absolute, and hence our logarithmic scale of perception.
Regardless of why it works this way, our perception of quality is also logarithmic. And this has a very counter-intuitive impact on the amount of work we put into projects in development. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted
on May 21, 2010, 4:17 am,
by Anatolie Gavriliuc,
under
Games.
Since the world of games is so varied, we classify games by their core game mechanic. You probably know what these acronyms mean: FPS, RPG, MMO, RTS. Then there is also Racing, Sports, Arcade, Sim, Action, Adventure, Serious, Puzzle, Casual and so on… Fun stuff!
While this classification triggers good memories and is definitely useful, I think there is a need to introduce an additional meta-classification of multi-player games that defines how players interact within the game world. It is especially timely now, when the established videogame industry starts to migrate to the social networks and mobile platforms. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted
on May 16, 2010, 7:07 pm,
by Anatolie Gavriliuc,
under
Human Factor.
You know why ideas can not be stolen? You know why the top team members get to sign “stay” agreements when their company gets acquired?
Well, actually, ideas and tech can be stolen and copied. Specifically their implemented form. And this surely can do some damage in the short term. But it doesn’t really matter in the long run. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted
on April 20, 2010, 2:35 am,
by Anatolie Gavriliuc,
under
Management.
Tech risk management is an intrinsic part of the planning process of any project. It provides answers to questions like – “What if the technology we rely on fails?”. It is not unusual for many projects to have new unproven tech at their core, or even tech that has not been developed yet. How can you guarantee that it is going to work out?
Often times, the answers to questions like these are sought not only by the internal team managers, but by investors as well. If nothing else, they are putting their money on the line and it is only natural that they would want some reassurance their investment is not a gambling venture. Read the rest of this entry »
