Working with a no longer minuscule set of customers on applied games of a really wide spectrum of themes I've noticed in the early phases some misunderstanding that recur. In order to help both parties (game designers and field experts) to reach a common ground, I've set the misunderstandings in extreme and simplified form so you may use them as vaccine :-)

1. (Mis)Understanding
Applied Game Design

2. Prevention is better than
cure.
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3. A series of
misunderstandings
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4. “Playing games means
understanding games.”

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5. “Lets add Educational to an
existing game.”

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6. “Let’s clone an existing game so
we know people love it.”

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7. “Simple games are simple to
produce.”

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8. “Keep it simple, just create a
working prototype and copy the
graphics elements from the
interweb.”

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9. “People like simple games, so
they can’t tell the difference
between refined productions
and those done cutting
corners.”

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10. “Many (and myself) love this
game genre, so everyone will
love it.”

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11. “We need virtual reality as I
tried it once and its soo much
fun.”

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12. P.S.

13. Core experience & principle.
1. I did a lot of re-design of failed
projects.
2. My guiding principle is that the
learning process is not
“collateral” to the game
mechanics.

14. This is by Ian Bogost “Gamification is Bullshit”.

15. “Idea is king. Execution is King
Kong!”
Ville Simola
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16. From “What you should know about game prototypes”
http://lvictorino.com/blog/what-is-a-prototype/
“A lot of people still mix up
prototype and alpha.
Don’t be one of these fools.”

17. What non gaming fields can learn
from games is not
"providing fun through software”
but
providing depth of experience
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18. My twitter stream is
mostly dedicated to
game design
@ppolsinelli
A blog on game design
designagame.eu
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