Can Playing Video Games Inspire Your Interactive Work?
Balind on 06 Apr 2008 | Musings
For some reason I’ve never become a huge video-game fanatic. I had a super-nintendo when I was 11, enjoyed it and that was about it. I’ve always appreciated the graphics, animation and special effects, but as I got older, I was way too into sports, career and social life to see the value in repetitive decisions made within a fantasy realm.
Lately however, I feel like it’s time to throw my hat in the ring. This is partly because video games have become so undeniably cool that I suspect it may benefit my conceptual, design and animation sensibilities within the interactive field, but also… I really get the feeling the playability of the games themselves are high enough that they may add to my perspective on life rather than preventing me from experiencing it. Not to mention I must be the only non-gaming designer/developer at work, so maybe at lunch in the future I can weigh in on the difficultly level of the most recent version of Halo as well as topics like on-line marketing trends.
I’m curious to know what others thoughts are on this subject. Do you think your design and motion sense has benefited from gaming and what platform do you use, xbox or playstation (I have to decide)?
Rishi on 06 Apr 2008 at 3:36 pm #
I must say, to be honest, I feel the same, I have never been into the video game thing really, ive had the NES a long time ago with 2 games called Donkey Kong and another one which i just lost the name off.
I guess the Playstation 3 wud be the best platform because you can do so much with it. And yeh it looks better then the Xbox anyway.
The last Halo3 site by AKQA made me change my mind tho, you learn so much from the interactivity in games and bring that to new media.
Altho id rather be jammin on me MBP then playin games.
Rishi on 07 Apr 2008 at 4:02 pm #
I forgot to say, if you get a ps3, no halo 3 :-(, so mayb…the xbox comes closer,haha!
Ben on 08 Apr 2008 at 9:03 pm #
Balind,
you and I are pretty similar in that respect. The only thing that has made me feel kinda out of place working in this industry is that fact that I’m not a “gamer”. I too was always way too into sports and being outdoors. Never owned a game system my entire life. However, I did buy a PS3 a couple months ago for Blue-Ray player, and I’ve been thinking about potentially getting my first game sometime in the distant future. Any recommendations since you’ve turned to the dark side (j/k) besides Halo (not even sure they have Halo for PS3, kinda sad actually)?
Jayden Lawson on 09 Apr 2008 at 7:58 pm #
I’m quite the same… used to play as a child, but now prefer to spend that time on other things.
But - since buying a Nintendo Wii… I’ve found design inspiration from things that Nintendo are doing. For example - the Wii has a built-in SD card reader, which is used by the “Wii Photo Channel” application to view or play all the photos/video/mp3s on any SD card.
What impressed me was the way the Photo Channel organises your photos. There is a fantastic ‘zoom out’, ‘zoom in’ feature which was an inspiration.
Check it out on a YouTube video I found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKnR-WJEqjM:
1:20 - zooming out
3:40… zooming in
Very cool.
YAPP on 09 Apr 2008 at 10:25 pm #
Well, I’m not much of a gamer myself - but I do think games are good for what we do. They can keep ya fresh, creative and imaginative. I’m a movie buff actually, so I enjoy watching movies. Movies always inspire me. Both games and movies I think inspire creativity alot. Even if the movie or game serves no purpose for a particular project you might be working on, it still keeps your creative juices flowin, and can help spawn ideas.
Games come with all kinds of motion and animation; interfaces, sounds, interactions. While movies provide a palette of inspiration too when it comes to motion. I love Tony Scott movies like Man on Fire. I love the editing he does. So, there’s no question, in my mind, that games and movies inspire interactive work.
Balind on 10 Apr 2008 at 9:23 am #
Man on fire was awesome for exactly that reason.
Siemer on 06 May 2008 at 1:28 am #
I graduated Communication & Multimedia on the influence of game design on other design areas. I am a gamer and a Flash developer, and although I don’t put a lot of time in games these days, I do follow the industries developments closely and draw a huge amount of inspiration from them - mostly when it comes to innovative interaction.
Adding a gameplay element can make even the most boring applications fun (see http://www.technicat.com/writing/play.html). There are some excellent books on the subject, like ‘Rules of Play’ by Katie Salen. I think game design will play an essential role in future software development. I know it will in my work!
CG on 06 May 2008 at 6:00 pm #
With the advances being made in Flash/processing power/web interfaces/etc., I think it’s absolutely necessary to gain inspiration from a medium which been growing for years unconstrained by the browsers and html-based delivery that the Web sprang from. What Flash developer working with Papervision, for example, couldn’t gain a little from looking at a medium that has been doing 3D interfaces for over a decade?
Sure, in the old days game menus were mostly about picking the armor to put on your elf or whatever, but those days are gone. One interesting example is the home menu that you see when you start up a PS3. Ten years ago, you just popped in a game, switched on your Play Station, and started mashing buttons. There was no such thing as a “menu” or a “home.” Now you turn on the system and you can navigate a cross-media bar that let’s you do anything from browse the internet to change your settings to shop in a fully-integrated store. The ovarall look is pretty tasteful, and you can tell that serious designers put a lot of work into making it clear and intuitive. But the most beautiful part of it, in my opinion, is that none of it takes place inside a clunky Web browser. In that sense, it may even be giving us a glimpse into the future of online experiences.
Seriously - I would not be at all embarrassed to invite a girl back to my apartment while that menu was on the screen. It doesn’t look like a child’s toy at all. It looks like a piece of high-end entertainment technology. And as the scope of the game industry’s content branches further and further outward from racing cars and blowing away monsters, inspired interfaces like the cross media bar are rapidly becoming more common.
Balind on 06 May 2008 at 10:03 pm #
UPDATE:
Got a PS3 and am currently jamming my way through “UNCHARTED”!
CG on 07 May 2008 at 3:52 pm #
If you’ve got an itch to see what games are capable of these days, “Uncharted” is probably one of the best ways to scratch it.
Danny on 12 May 2008 at 11:01 pm #
I have trouble making time for games these days, due to basketball and illustration and reading and everything else. I played like a maniac for a while when I was younger though, and it’s been invaluable. Interfaces become a bit ingrained in you - different ways to access loads of perceived objects and many different ways of representing quantitative information.
On top of that, it will save you covering a lot of ground that has already been covered and explored, and help you to avoid mistakes that have been made and learned from already. So many lovely 3D and 2D interfaces have been approached.
The thoroughness of the experience on the nintendo stuff recently is inspiring too - eg: passing over a cat in the top corner of the screen with your pointer and having your control vibrate.. the pussycat on screen is rendered a solid, real world thing by this simple feedback.
Buy Wow Gold on 21 May 2008 at 9:21 am #
Many times, you will become overcome by the huge supply of video games information handy.
extratightpants on 17 Jun 2008 at 1:45 pm #
I would start with the greatest and Best.
Call of Duty
Bioshock
Metal Gear Solid
Balind on 17 Jun 2008 at 2:25 pm #
Call of Duty is unreal I just finished it. Currently spending quality time with Metal Gear Solid.
eric on 12 Sep 2008 at 2:01 pm #
You might want to consider a Wii. While the graphics aren’t as good as 360 or PS3, I think that the concept behind some of the games are much stronger and unique.