How Game Design Primitives Prepare Us for AI | Bing Gordon

Bing Gordon (0:00)

The main takeaway is the primitives that make for success in game design, make success in other human-facing products. And by the way, it's also a good prep, understanding game design, thinking for the AI future of abundance and chaos. Because everybody who's ever played games knows that when you start out in your first session, you don't know what's there, and you go through basic steps to get good fast.

The key in game design thinking is motivate people to do what they already want to do.

SPEAKER_2 (0:36)

All right, we're back. I'm here with Bing Gordon, who is an advisor at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. He was also a founding member of Electronic Arts, the beloved video game company, and served as the company's chief creative officer. And I'm also here with Chloe Gordon, a writer, director, and president of Nice Night Horse Productions. So welcome. So happy to chat with you guys.

Bing Gordon (0:55)

And the real brains and the family sitting next to me.

SPEAKER_2 (0:59)

Yeah, so-

Bing Gordon (1:00)

By the way, congrats on your sponsors. You got a pretty A list of sponsors.

SPEAKER_2 (1:05)

Shout out. They are rolling down there on the screen.

Okay, so I guess we have a lot to talk about, but the first thing would be your book, Everybody Wins. So this is about lessons of decades of game design and investment. So tell us about this book and yeah, what are the main take aways without spoiling?

Bing Gordon (1:25)

The main take aways is the primitives that make for success in game design make success in other human facing products. And by the way, it's also a good prep, understanding game design thinking for the AI future of abundance and chaos.

Because everybody who's ever played games knows that when you start out in your first session, you don't know what's there and you go through basic steps to get good fast.

SPEAKER_2 (1:56)

Yeah.

Bing Gordon (1:56)

And I think some of those steps are also useful in thinking about an unknown future. Or as Jeff Bezos says, invent and wander, walking into strange new neighborhoods.

But also understanding how agents can game the system is also pretty useful. So I think this is, as Chloe says, the key in game design thinking is motivate people to do what they already want to do.

Chloe Gordon (2:32)

Games are unusually well aligned with their customers. And part of what makes them so motivating and so engaging is that they encourage you to do the things you already want to do. So connect with other people socially. Personal mastery and self-betterment, sort of productivity as a third, but not a first or a second.

So figuring out how to get other consumer-facing products as in line with customers as video games are for gamers.

Bing Gordon (3:09)

And the world where content heads toward free motivation identity is expensive. And games are the second most motivating human creation of all time. The first being religion.

And so being able to motivate yourself and others, there's a lot to learn from the way games work.

SPEAKER_2 (3:32)

Yeah. So there's a lot of threads to pull there.

I think something interesting is definitely how like, there's some games that are like, games are an inherent medium of monetizing like attention and time. And so there's, I feel like a definite care that goes into game design to make it like, you know, socially productive. And then also like, yeah, so to have an aspect of connection and also like expression, like if you make a game where people can actually like express themselves through it, then I feel like it's a more positive experience. So I feel like also part of this book, like the title is literally Everybody Wins. So how are you thinking of making these like positive sum games that are ultimately very artful and stuff?

Bing Gordon (4:12)

One of the surprise learnings in the early days of games, when I started out in games, it was mostly designed by games are designed by teenage boys and people who acted like teenage boys. And didn't occur to them that most of the world likes cooperation more than competition.

And the in-your-face thing that some boys like was not broadly popular. And so I found myself over decades trying to convince the boy designers that cooperation and win-win was actually a positive strategy for game design. And again and again and again, I heard boys don't play dolls, I don't know why they play action figures. You know, boys don't cooperate. Well, let's try it and see what happens. And so this everybody wins approach to design and approach to life design just turns out to be a contrarian, but provably the winning strategy.