Getting Rid of Assumptions About Players

 Each game is created with an idea of who the players will be. The designers work with the marketing team and create plans for how to reach the target market. Most often, that target is the same for each and every game no matter the genre, game play, etc. with very little thought about who else might be playing the games.

Our first workshop is called Designer Bias: Identifying and Minimizing Assumptions About Players From the Design Process. The goal is to show designers how their biases about who their players are affect all different aspects of their games, often to their detriment.

This workshop is about the assumptions made about a game’s players. In an attempt to create a workshop where the attendees can’t game the system I designed an interactive program that keeps the attendees engaged, but a bit off center so the players can’t game the system.

This short workshop is part of a larger workshop series Chanel and I are creating that focus on world building for games and challenge designers to see their worlds differently.

We’ll be showcasing at the Edugaming Conference in August 2014 at Lehigh Carbon Community College. You can find information here.