BioWare’s closure raised a difficult industry question for me last week: what happens when we become better at counting production output than recognising design judgment? This is the question at a smaller, practical scale. When a proposed feature arrives, how do we tell whether it belongs in the game? I use a design filter. It asks what fantasy the feature supports, what decision it creates, how the game responds and whether the existing rules can support it. Those questions won’t make production easy. They will stop a team from mistaking an expanding feature list for a developing game...
