[Roundtable] Analogue Co-Design: Opportunities, Challenges and Other Nuances

Abstract

Co-design is linked to a range of advantages, encompassing enhancements in idea generation, service or product development processes, decision-making, cooperation, creativity, as well as long-term satisfaction and loyalty among clients and users (Steen, 2013; Steen et al., 2011). Despite its widespread use as a strategic approach, co-design has received less scholarly attention, and critical discussions regarding its underlying concepts are infrequent. The occurrence of this particular circumstance can perhaps be attributed to the widespread practice of categorizing projects as co-design, which may lead to a dilution or confusion of conceptual understanding (Steen, 2013).
In the field of games, especially at an academic level, the idea of co-design has been used mainly to describe processes of horizontalizing research design, aligned with participatory paradigms (Brown, 2022; Hall, 1975). Specifically, where the player no longer plays a completely passive role, but co-creates the gaming world together with the designers (De Jans et al., 2017; Loos et al., 2019; Pedersen & Buur, 2000). Or when the games (applied as a serious game) deliver a tool for ideation and the co-creation of projects and solutions to a specific problem (Sousa, 2021).
Here, we have invited two of the most prominent duos of contemporary analog game designers – Isra/Shei and Inka Brand/Markus Brand – to reflect on how they complement and oppose each other in this process. Relational and gender characteristics, how they impact the creative process, and the players’ vision of the games created, among many other issues, will be reflected here.