I want my little corner of the world where I get to make games where you're not trying to win or lose; you're not trying to get a higher score - you are having unbelievable amounts of fun as you learn about yourself and the world. That's what games can do!
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the joy of creating games that prioritize fun and self-discovery over competition and winning.
Warren Spector expresses a desire to create a unique gaming experience that focuses on enjoyment, personal exploration, and learning rather than traditional competition and scoring. He believes that games have the potential to enrich lives by offering players an opportunity to engage with themselves and the world around them in a meaningful way, highlighting the artistic and educational value of gaming.
In practice
This quote can be used to inspire game developers at a conference.
Ideas are nothing. They're irrelevant. If you think your idea is so important, you're doomed. The reality is if you don't like one idea, I've got 299 more. If I tell you my idea, and you can execute better against that idea than I can - great; I get to play a terrific game.
I have never made a game that wasn't explicitly about empowering players to tell their own story.
Skill in writing frees you to write what you want to write. It may also show you what you want to write. Craft enables art.
Having been an actor and a writer for so long - 20 years or so - I felt that it would be daft to go to one's grave without having directed. It's a natural extension of writing and acting, and so I knew it would happen one day.
I'm an engineer. I see myself as a toolmaker and the musicians are my customers... They use my tools.
In other words, I wouldn't like to be an actor if I could only be real. I like to get wild, behaviorally wild, and it's crazy to think of any form where it's just one way.
The painting is finished when the idea has disappeared.
Inspiration comes unawares, from unaccountable sources that have nothing to do with planning or intelligence. Let it cool ever so slightly, and you are left, pen or brush in hand, with no inspiration at all. Gifted people need not, therefore, make a song and dance about being or supposing themselves superior. They simply happened to be born with that fortunate, subconscious equipment of theirs, and the mystery exists independently of intelligence or ambition.
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