Conceiving Fun: Where Game Ideas Come From

Players Only looks at the conception of video games to find out where the crazy ideas that make the best games actually come from.

If you’ve ever sat down to construct a city on your computer, control the human race from its infancy, or set up battling moon bases, you’ve probably wondered where such intricate and fun ideas for games manage to come from. In this week’s episode of Player’s Only, Scott Steinberg finds out. He talks to game developers about the creative conception of a game, what type of ideas they think make the best games, and how they’re pushing boundaries.

Unlike more developed mediums like cinema, developers still struggle to define what it is exactly that makes an entertaining game.  Denis Dyack of Silicon Knights, for instance, uses “engagement theory,” spinning games out of a combination of art, audio, technology, gameplay and story. American McGee, on the other hand, prefers to start with characters and art, and let simply let the gameplay come out later.

New episodes of Players Only, Digital Trends’ ongoing video game industry series, are released every Thursday, running up until June 6. The final series will comprise 10 episodes, spanning topics from the artistic merit of video games to the latest industry trends, like casual gaming.