Chris Crawford on Game Design

Chapter 7. Creativity: The Missing Ingredient

During the 1990s, the games industry managed to stomp out much of the effervescent creativity its designers had demonstrated during the 1980s. Nowadays, game design itself is a coldly mechanical process requiring little in the way of creativity. This is not to say that game designers aren't creative people; on the contrary, the best game designers are some of the most creative people I know. The problem is that in the long grind from inspiration to product, the most creative aspects of the design are ground away until the final result is little more than yesterday's big hit with a few minor embellishments.