Collaboration & The Gamer

Collaborative creativity is when a group of designers/artists get together to find a game plan.  The best way to find a well-rounded and effective final product is to have a group work on it.  Mary Stewart talks about some of the steps collaborative groups should take part in to ensure that the process is effective.  The summarized version is as follows:

Sharpen your focus.

Use playful rules (make the process seem fun when you're being effective).

Number your ideas.

Build and jump (pose questions and goals that help the group continue to move forward).

Leave space for a visual representation of your ideas.

Warm up, get to know your group if people are new.

Keep physical resources out so you can make things on the spot.

What I noticed about this list is that collaborative creativity sounds like a video game.  Seriously.  When you begin a new game, you sharpen your focus by educating yourself on the game until you know everything about it and exactly what you'll be doing to reach your goal.  Playful rules are like the activities that are within some games, like various fights you participate in to develop more experience, or different points along a storyline.  If its a storyline game, or anything that has some sort of order, or you collect various skill points or objects along the way, sequences and numbering is involved.  Building and jumping is obviously something found in games - whether you actually reach new levels, or just advance through varying tasks, you're being prompted to increase in experience and move toward the goal.  There is constant visual representation of ideas through life, energy, amo, inventory, etc. bars or visual representations on your screen.  When you begin a single-player game with a storyline, like Halo, you are introduced to your "group" or teammates, and in a live game online, you quickly learn the important details about the other people playing so you can use them to your advantage.  And finally, physical resources are always available for leisure or neccesity - building blocks and tools in Minecraft, food, valuable materials, etc. in Skyrim, amunition, weaponry, etc. in a million others.

So yes, creative collaboration is very much like gaming.  Does that proove that games are art now?