Grand Text Auto

A variety of folks have been reacting to Ian Bogost’s “Gamification is Bullshit” post today (with which, for the record, I largely concur.)

This is one of my favorite responses.

The whole essay is fantastic, but I want to take a second to point out something of an aside of Mr. Nelson’s:

“…perhaps we could also read from the large body of research in areas like cognitive behavioral therapy, which includes a lot of thinking on quite relevant questions, such as how to use extrinsic interventions in a way that guides a user towards intrinsic motivation, rather than making them dependent on Skinner-box-like motivational approaches”

I have two main thrusts for this post; first, the experience of crafting/creating in real life and how that might possibly inform the process of crafting and creating in a game, and second, the impact of tools (or lack thereof) on same.  And I am starting out with a little bit of an introduction about why this concept of Creativity should be considered to span more games than “just” MMOs, where the word crafting has direct application.

Further, crafting and creation seems the most direct possible application of the concepts behind user-generated content, yet those applications have been ignored or, worse, actively thwarted (as in the case of The Sims.)

1. Creativity