Game Design Research – Petri Lankoski Jussi Holopainen

and practice-based design research is arguably underrepresented in the games research community. Although game design research espouses to open an inclusive community, at present, research approaches and the presentation of results is dominated by those inherited from either the social sciences or HCI (Deterding, 2016). This dominance of loaded and prescriptive academic frameworks is arguably why many of those creating games outside academia feel such research is unrepresentative of their own practices.

In many respects this tension in game design, between research and practice, mirrors what happened in the broader discipline of design whereby academic research was often perceived as separate from design practice (cf. Frayling, 1993). More recently practice-based research has been the subject of increased interest, particularly within HCI (Gaver, 2012) and media studies, coinciding with an increasingly prominent role given to design by the UK Research Council; both as a distinct area of practice-based research and the benefits of its inclusion within interdisciplinary research projects. This also correlates with feedback from Research Assessment Framework panels (periodic review or research performance at UK) universities which praised the value of practice-based or non-textual research outputs for its impact on communities and cultures outside of the education sector (Sutherland and Acord, 2007).

This then leads us to question why is game design research not more readily engaging with the broader design research community? This is particularly important as game design research could also offer insights for design research more generally. Although it has been proposed that adopting a design science approach could address game design through practice (Waern and Back, 2015), drawing on a similar proposition by Herbert Simon (1981) for design, it is important to note that this HCI desire for technological rationality has largely been rejected by design researchers in favor of “design studied on its own terms, and within its own rigorous culture” (Cross, 2001).

The aim of this chapter is therefore to draw from approaches used for practice-based research in design that successfully produce what is accepted as valid forms of academic design research so that areas of game design research can move closer to reflect game design practice, mirroring its acceptance in the wider design disciplines. By situating research through game design amid the wider discourses of practice- based research we can consider new approaches to game design research in the context of the broader discipline of design rather than through other academic disciplinary lenses.

To start such a consideration, it is important to gain a methodological understanding of how research through game design could be undertaken by drawing upon methodological approaches that are considered commensurate with design practice. The chapter will then focus on game design practice that is primarily concerned with the construction of the communicative rather than purely as objects of entertainment, that is, games whose design is primarily to question societal values and norms.

An Introduction to Theory & Practice Petri Lankoski & Jussi Holopainen Carnegie Mellon University: ETC Press Pittsburgh, PA Game Design Research by ETC Press is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. Copyright © by ETC Press 2017 http://press.etc.cmu.edu/ ISBN 978-1-387-40836-8 (Print) ISBN 978-1-387-40837-5 (Digital) TEXT: The text of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NonDerivative 2.5 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/) IMAGES: All images appearing in this work are property of the respective copyright owners, and are not released into the Creative Commons.

The respective owners reserve all rights. CONTENTS Game design research An overview Petri Lankoski and Jussi Holopainen 1 1. Epistemological underpinnings of game design research Laureline Chiapello 15 2. Multidisciplinary game design research Ontologies and other remarks Annakaisa Kultima 35 3. De-coding games through historical research in art and design Christopher W. Totten 51 4. Investigating game design methods and models Joris Dormans and Jussi Holopainen 75 5. Games design research through game design practice Paul Coulton and Alan Hook 97 6.

Game design mise-en-scène practice Intention and means in JEU SERAI Emmanuel Guardiola and Stéphane Natkin 117 7. Gaps of uncertainty A case for experimentation in serious game design frameworks Niels Quinten, Steven Malliet and Karin Coninx 135 8. Experimental game design Annika Waern & Jon Back 157 9. Going indie Methods for understanding indie production Alyea Sandovar 171 10. Critical practices in game design Jess Marcotte and Rilla Khaled 199 About the Authors 219 About the ETC Press 223 GAME DESIGN RESEARCH AN OVERVIEW AN OVERVIEW PETRI LANK PETRI LANKOSKI AND JUSSI HOLOP OSKI AND JUSSI HOLOPAINEN AINEN Game design aims to solve a design problem of “how do we create this specific game?”

The main goal of this process is a game; new understanding about game development and game design is merely a by-product of that process. In game design research the aim is to uncover new facts and insight about game design, design processes, or games as designed objects; that is, to gain new knowledge and understanding about game design. Game research, on the other hand, is an umbrella term for all kinds of research studying games (as artifacts), play, or players (cf.

Lankoski and Björk, 2015b) Design research, or design studies as it is also called, has been gaining momentum since the beginning of 20th century, although its history can be traced back millennia (e.g., Aristotle’s Poetics, circa 335 BCE and Vitruvius’ De architectura circa 15 BCE). While the history of games is long, little is known about the design of early games. Some information about evolution of certain games exists (e.g., Parker, 2006).

Elizabeth Magie’s Landlord’s game (1903) is one of the early examples where there is data about its design, such as that the game is designed based on an economical theory by Henry George.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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