Here's an amusing thought-experiment/time-waster for people who pride themselves on distinguishing a Will Wright game form a Peter Molyneux vehicle: Sheri Graner Ray, game designer at Sony Online Entertainment has devised The Pub Game in which,
you take an experience, in this case a restaurant, and describe it as if done by different designers.
So, using her example, she offers:
If Sid Meier created this restaurant, first we'd have to invent the Chinese, and the Koreans and all the other Asian cultures before we could invent the food that would then be served in the restaurant…
If Will Wright created this restaurant, we'd have to continually monitor what each employee was doing, instructing them when to cook, when to clean and when to go to the bathroom, but eventually, it would burn down anyway.. and if it didn't a natural disaster would occur to make sure it was destroyed.
If Richard Garriott created this restaurant, it would have been started by him and a number of his friends. At the restaurant, the customers could harvest the grain, mill it into flour, mix it and bake it into bread… which of course would have nothing to do with anything on the menu
If Raph Koster created this restaurant, it would be completely self contained. It would be completely automated, adjusting its menus to reflect the changing seasons, regulating its resource consumption based on available crops and making the food. It wouldn't even need customers.. in fact, customers could just watch as it ran itself!
If Brenda Brathwaite created this restaurant, it woud be staffed by naked people and the customers would have to order their meals from a terminal equiped only with an excel spread sheet
If Sheri Graner Ray created this restaurant, there would be extensive discussion on the new diner experience and how to create the easiest onramp to the restaurant and making sure all dining styles were accounted for.. this would all then be put into a visio flowchart before any work on building the restaurant could begin.
Raph Koster has added his tuppence:
If John Carmack created this restaurant, it would be just like his other restaurants, except much prettier.If Steve Mereztsky created this restaurant, an octopus, a priest, and a cowboy would immediately walk up to the bar….
His readership has also been very clever. So let's put them to shame. There are no British designers on their list (well, Garriott is nominally British, but he's not been in residence here for a while). What about Peter Molyneux? Dr. David Doak? Jonathan Smith? Jeff Minter? Richard Bartle?
