لطفا منتظر باشید ...
Redefinition: Locating Design
Just as there are endless ways to read games as culture, there are innumerable perspectives from which to understand the concept of culture itself. We conclude with a final framing of culture that brings our focus squarely back to design. Design historian Richard Buchanan defines culture as "an activity of ordering, disordering, and reordering in the search for understanding and for values which guide action."[7] Buchanan's definition challenges and de-centers many common sense notions of design and culture. As he puts it, the fate of design "does not lie entirely within the framework of design culture or in the hands of a few gifted individuals. It lies within the framework of culture as a whole."[8] The activity of "ordering, disordering, and reordering" suggests that the practice of design is, above all, a cultural one.
Many game designers eschew cultural approaches to their work, preferring craft-centric methods that repress the existence of games within larger cultural contexts. You might or might not choose to recognize that as a game designer you are a producer of culture. You may choose to rely on the cultural conventions set by others, conventions that are at best obstacles to innovation and insight and at worst destructive ideologies tied to racism, sexism, and xenophobia. Regardless of your approach, the status of games as culture is not something to be negotiated or debated. They are indisputably cultural. As a game designer, it is your responsibility to acknowledge this fact and make use of it in your design process. The recognition that you are designing in the context of culture can become a powerful game design asset. It can lead to new audiences for your games, new kinds of game content, new forms of mischief and subversion, and new ways for people to play. If your aim is to design truly meaningful play for your players, your games should be effective on every possible level. Creating culturally meaningful play, the focus of the four schemas to follow, is as important as rules or play in the successful execution of game design. [7]Richard Buchanan, "Branzi's Dilemma: Design in Contemporary Culture." In Design: Pleasure or Responsibility? eds. P. Takhokallio and S. Vihma (Helsinki: University of Art and Design Helsinki, 1995), p. 10.[8]Ibid., p. 10.
