Introducción
Games are a ubiquitous feature of popular culture, providing
ephemeral entertainment that draws on quick wit, cognitive and
motor skills, and the reservoir of emotions that lie beneath the sur-
face of every human being, whatever their age or cultural back-
ground. This is a common understanding of games and gaming,
illustrated with examples of games from the earliest period of all
culturas. What is different today is the way games are delivered to
players and how the manner of delivery has created opportunities
to develop new forms of games and explore the nature of gaming
sí mismo. The manner of delivery, por supuesto, is digital technology, y
this special issue of Design Issues—compiled by guest editors James
Malazita, Casey O’Donnell, and Elizabeth LaPensée—focuses on
the theme of Critical Game Design. In their introduction, James
Malazita and Casey O’Donnell describe the concept as “the deep
synthesis of game design, cultural critique, and reflective design
research practices.” This is difficult terrain because it crosses so
many domains and disciplines, raising questions and making con-
nections that can be surprising and sometimes troubling. It is worth
noting, sin embargo, that the concept behind this special issue echoes
deeply with the development of design itself in its diverse branches,
bringing together design practice, different approaches to design
research and theory, and the cultural and philosophical grounding
of design.
Though not stated directly by the guest editors in this issue,
one can argue that in design theory games are a special kind of
interactive and interaction product, in a sense parallel with other
kinds of interaction products such as “services.” In some cases, nosotros
use the terms “interactive” and “interaction” interchangeably, pero
each kind of interaction product has its own history and its own
struggle for recognition and deeper understanding. There is, as yet,
no convincing typology of interaction products, but when reason-
able and well-grounded accounts do emerge one may expect them
to include game design, service design, policy design, and other
forms of interactive and interaction design thinking.
https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_e_00710
© 2023 Instituto de Tecnología de Massachusetts
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From its early beginnings in computer science, where grad-
uate students in their off-time played with the technological possi-
bilities of software, to the current state of technical complexity and
huge financial investment, the development of digital games has
been pushed and pulled by many forces, corporate, educational, y
intellectual. Corporate interest is no surprise, given the huge mar-
ket for novel games around the world and the immense amount of
money at stake for companies. Similarmente, educational diversity is no
surprise, given the competition for student enrollment at universi-
ties and the desire of diverse departments to claim a stake in the
popularity of gaming as well as subsequent employment opportu-
niidades. One need only remember the jealous guardians of design that
surround design schools—engineering, arte, cognitive science, otro
behavioral and social sciences, computer science, and management,
to name some of the most evident. Sin embargo, intellectual interest in
gaming is quite complicated, going beyond corporate and academic
interests. The STEM disciplines of science, tecnología, engineering,
and mathematics have an obvious stake in development of the tech-
nology of games, whether in single-player or multi-player systems.
The programming challenges are met with the economic rewards
that motivate the growth of technology. The combination of these
factors helps to explain the early history of game design and tech-
nology development. But the subsequent growth of games and
gaming has raised questions and challenges for the social sciences
and the humanities as human motivations, valores, and cultural
circumstances have quietly taken shape. It is not uncommon to see
education in game development emerging, Por ejemplo, in theater
departments or in interdisciplinary humanities and social science
programas. With this have come deeper questions for research in tra-
ditional disciplines.
It is apparent now—though perhaps not so clear in the be-
ginning—that game development is an extension of design think-
En g, where the so-called “traditional” design branches are brought
together in new forms of interaction design, involving communi-
catión, visual expression, process logic, psicología, and cultural
expectations. Games are a special kind of product, a product
steeped in human interaction, with a mixture of the tangible and
the intangible. This is comparable in some ways with the forms and
practices of “service design.” In this respect, one should pay close
attention to the distinction (and close relationship) between “game”
and “gaming” in these articles—an artifact and an activity, the noun
2
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and the gerund. It is important to trace the themes of game design
through the articles in this special issue and learn how the field or
discipline or domain of games and gaming has developed. As the
guest editors explain, there are six articles in this issue. Ellos son
thoughtfully divided into two sets. The first set of three articles fo-
cuses on processes and form in gaming design, recognizing “how
marginalized perspectives, methods, and worldviews can be cen-
tered at the heart of game design.” The second set of three articles
focuses on an institutional approach to the “epistemic and struc-
tural conditions of industry and academia,” and how those condi-
tions can be related to new kinds of practice. A useful feature of this
special issue is the Design Issues practice of encouraging extensive
notes that support further exploration of the theme or topic. En esto
caso, the notes reveal some of the anchoring studies of games (para
ejemplo, Brenda Laurel’s work, already well known in the design
comunidad) as well as the venue of earlier publications in the study
and practice of games and game design.
The articles in this special issue do not claim to firmly estab-
lish or define a new field of inquiry. As Malazita and O’Donnell say,
“this issue does not seek to be a field summary or a defining mo-
ment of critical game design.” Instead, the goal is to open a “space
for a plurality of approaches, methods, and models for the future of
games scholarship and scholars working in academic and profes-
sional spaces.” Indeed, an opportunity closely related to the goal of
this special issue is finding a broader connection between game de-
sign and the diverse branches of design theory and practice. The in-
tent of the editors and their collaborators is entirely consistent with
the vision and mission of Design Issues, to encourage a pluralism of
theories and practices of design and broaden of our understanding
of design as a cultural art.
Bruce Brown
Richard Buchanan
Carl DiSalvo
Kipum Lee
Ramia Mazé
Teal Triggs
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