In class, I asked a question about theory and practice. It's a problem confused me for long. Actually, it's more than one question. How to use theory to guide our practice? How do we know if a specific theory is too old or just appropriate? Can we use theory to help us make decision? I still have no answer, just try to tell you something I experienced in Chinese game industry.
Today not only small groups (for example, 2~20 persons) but also medium team (21~80 persons) of game or software development use scrum (agile software development) as their project management method. Even some big team (more than 100 persons) tried to find out how to adjust their team with scrum method. But no more than 5 years ago, companies still use waterfall mode to guide their developing process.
What is waterfall? From Wiki, it’s a sequential design process, used in software development processes, in which progress is seen as flowing steadily downwards (like a waterfall) through the phases. Waterfall model takes too long to get products ready to public. It looks like a giant battleship – it’s a good choice to a feet, but not the best choice for pirates. But in mobile era, game development teams are smaller, faster, and more flexible. What they need is something easier and agiler to handle, which is agile game development.
The environment is always changing, which means theories, which we use to guide our practice, need to keep up with new environment. That’s why I doubt that if FLOW could guide our practice today as usual. Ten years ago, we have only console games and PC games. Players spent tremendous time on these platforms, and played more than eight hours a day. FLOW worked well at this ear, since everyone wants to create immersed experience to make players staying in their game. But for mobile players, who consist biggest user base of game ever, immersion may become burden. It means that they need to spend more time and energy than their expectation in one game. We play game for relax, not exhaustion.
That’s why I have doubt with FLOW theory. I’m not going to say “FLOW is old fashion, we must get rid of it”. It’s still a great theory in creating optimal experience. I just assume that maybe FLOW need to be modified and iterated, as our practice. It looks like a good direction for my thesis?
Today not only small groups (for example, 2~20 persons) but also medium team (21~80 persons) of game or software development use scrum (agile software development) as their project management method. Even some big team (more than 100 persons) tried to find out how to adjust their team with scrum method. But no more than 5 years ago, companies still use waterfall mode to guide their developing process.
What is waterfall? From Wiki, it’s a sequential design process, used in software development processes, in which progress is seen as flowing steadily downwards (like a waterfall) through the phases. Waterfall model takes too long to get products ready to public. It looks like a giant battleship – it’s a good choice to a feet, but not the best choice for pirates. But in mobile era, game development teams are smaller, faster, and more flexible. What they need is something easier and agiler to handle, which is agile game development.
The environment is always changing, which means theories, which we use to guide our practice, need to keep up with new environment. That’s why I doubt that if FLOW could guide our practice today as usual. Ten years ago, we have only console games and PC games. Players spent tremendous time on these platforms, and played more than eight hours a day. FLOW worked well at this ear, since everyone wants to create immersed experience to make players staying in their game. But for mobile players, who consist biggest user base of game ever, immersion may become burden. It means that they need to spend more time and energy than their expectation in one game. We play game for relax, not exhaustion.
That’s why I have doubt with FLOW theory. I’m not going to say “FLOW is old fashion, we must get rid of it”. It’s still a great theory in creating optimal experience. I just assume that maybe FLOW need to be modified and iterated, as our practice. It looks like a good direction for my thesis?