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Original post by Adraeus Art isn't designed, design or a product of design.

I guess you're not an artist then.

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Original post by Adraeus Art isn't designed, design or a product of design.

I guess it's just an accident then?

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Original post by Adraeus 1-------- If the success or failure of a design were subjective as you claim, the success or failure of a design would be relevant, not irrelevant, to classification of a product since success and failure in this sense are ambiguous.

Can the difference between two ambiguous states (i.e. nothing) be relevant to anything?

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Original post by Adraeus Fortunately, the success or failure of a design is measurable and discernable (e.g., "Has this product satisfied the target market? Achieved the desired effect? Sold this many units and retained profitability?"); thus, it is objective.

Can I borrow your satisfactometer after you use it on your target market? Every example that you gave is subjective.

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Original post by Adraeus Game designers, marketers and other communicators are concerned with the classification of games. What exactly is a game's genre is a communications problem which would be easier to solve if we collectively analyzed it.

other communicators? You've left that hanging open just a little too far.

[Edited by - lucky_monkey on January 17, 2005 6:40:07 PM]

Kylotan:
1. Design and marketing (the act of getting a product to a market) are complementary. Without user interacton, design (good or bad) is inherently ineffectual since the success of a design is determined by user satisfaction. "Satisfaction" simply refers to whether a product met a user's need. For instance, the typical hammer-user buys a hammer assuming that usage of the hammer will enable the user to drive a nail into a material. In other words, a person buys a hammer to get a job done. If that job is completed using the hammer (a product of design), then that user is satisfied.

2. Come back to this discussion when you've learned to be civil and when you've studied branding enough to understand the psychology of classification. I deal with these issues on a daily basis as part of my work.

superpig:
You're right. I'm a designer.

lucky_monkey:
1--------
Design has commercial goals and constraints, and is used to produce a solution to a problem. That is, the general intent of design is cause or influence reaction to a product. In product design, which includes pottery and sculpture (often confused with art media), the purpose may vary (e.g., usability) which is covered in the book I referred to several posts earlier. Design is a problem-solving tool, and since its success is measurable, design is objective.

While art is sometimes subjected to commercial goals and constraints, it is not always so. When art is subjected to commercial applicability, it contributes to a design; thus, commercial art is a design tool, not design itself. Art is also used to model reality. Science is used to model reality too; however, art is strongly affected by subjectivity such as interpretation and distortion of reality. Fantasy is never completely unreal since the components we use to construct fantasy are produced subjectively using real-world objects.

2--------
I don't understand your second question.

3--------
You'd think so when you don't understand the lingo.

4--------
Doubtful.

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Original post by Adraeus superpig: You're right. I'm a designer.

OK. The reason I raised art as a discussion point is because (a) many people hold the opinion that games are an art form, even if you're not one of them, and (b) art is a good example of a concept that is usually interpreted differently depending on the observer's point of view. And I disagree when you say that art is not 'designed' - most of the artists I know do know exactly what they want to achieve before they begin a project.

In graphic design, you're trying to get across a concept - trying to design packaging for a product to be eyecatching and positive, or trying to design a logo to convey a particular set of ideas - and if you don't attract the user's attention or convey your particular set of ideas correctly, you've failed. That's fair enough.

However, I don't think games are like graphic design - I think they're more like art in general. And in particular, I'm worried that your viewpoint prohibits emergent gameplay. What's your opinion of games that are designed to be 'open-ended,' in that the designer does not seek to convey particular concepts but rather gives the player the freedom to pick and choose their concepts, like some kind of interactive Rorschach test?

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Original post by Adraeus "Satisfaction" simply refers to whether a product met a user's need. For instance, the typical hammer-user buys a hammer assuming that usage of the hammer will enable the user to drive a nail into a material. In other words, a person buys a hammer to get a job done. If that job is completed using the hammer (a product of design), then that user is satisfied.

Satisfaction is relative to who is satisfied. So trying to define satisfaction is not the issue here. And you ignored the point that a design may satisfy one user and fail to satisfy another. As with several of your posts here, this is all irrelevant to the original question. You are arguing increasingly tangential points that don't support your original argument, which seems to be that "whatever the designer wants the game to be, determines what it actually is", which is blatantly false.

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2. Come back to this discussion when you've learned to be civil and when you've studied branding enough to understand the psychology of classification. I deal with these issues on a daily basis as part of my work.

Good for you. Why don't you come back to this discussion when you're not too pompous to accept that your opinion of a given definition is not the only valid one? Just because you claim to have expertise in a given area does not mean that the knowledge you learned there is 100% applicable to any other area you deign to venture an opinion on. And if you want to start citing 'the psychology' of classification I will find academic studies to refute any system you choose to adopt.

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Original post by Adraeus lucky_monkey: 1-------- ...babble removed...

Design is a process, the act of working out the form of something. It is essentially a tool for translating the abstract into the concrete.

Art is concrete, a thing which has had it's form worked out. Art is a product of the process of design, an expression of creativity, the abstract solidified.

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Original post by Adraeus 2-------- I don't understand your second question.

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Original post by Adraeus 1-------- If the success or failure of a design were subjective as you claim, the success or failure of a design would be relevant, not irrelevant, to classification of a product since success and failure in this sense are ambiguous.

The difference between two things that are ambiguous is negligible.

If X and Y are ambiguous then the difference between them cannot be relevant to anything, as there is no difference from our point of reference.

In the case of your statement, X and Y are the success and failure of a design.

therefore: the statement is false

[edit]
I feel bad just posting arguments in the thread so I'll also put foward my view of what an RPG is...

An RPG is a game where the main focus of play is on extending the story.

[Edited by - lucky_monkey on January 18, 2005 10:26:21 PM]