I recently posted a video summarizing empathy and yesterday I read a short article about how empathy relates directly to game design. Robin Hunicke recently argued at the D.I.C.E. Summit that ‘The super-tool that helps you in game development’.
And there’s good reason to do so: “Games made by people who care about people are the ones that people talk about,” said Hunicke. “They’re the ones that go viral,” she said, with “huge success out of scale of their marketing budgets or their teams.” Her examples? Broken Age, Gone Home, and League of Legends.
The connection between games and empathy is obvious on some levels, but it’s important to remember and share this knowledge. There is also plenty of good news related to empathy too.
We also shouldn’t ignore that empathy can be used for other aspects of design – and in a multitude of ways.
MASS Design Group is a young company that focuses on empathic architecture.
In this talk Dr Brené Brown argues that empathic vulnerability helps with problem solving.
Here’s a recording of a webinar (audio is fairly bad) about bringing empathy into the everyday working world.