Recent content by Wendy Despain

Making Fun Ain't Always Fun Many believe that creative endeavors are an easy job, with tons of perks. Wendy Despain tells the truth about designing games. Hint: It's not fun. Read Full Article

Falling Into a Happy Aquarium On the surface, no gamer finds anything of value in games on a social platform. Wendy Despain dissects just how our brain is tricked into having fun with FarmVille or Happy Aquarium. Read Full Article

Wandering Stars While many game developers are primarily concerned with staying afloat until their next game ships, it pays to have a broader outlook. Wendy Despain speaks with International Hobo's Chris Bateman about the past and future of the U.K. games industry. Read Full Article

The Dating Game It's pretty well established that movies are great for first dates. Why not videogames? Wendy Despain imagines what it would take to make a videogame that's an acceptable first-date activity. Read Full Article

Bark! Bark! Bark! Think those repetitive bits of throw-away dialogue in videogames are annoying? Imagine how your roommate feels. Wendy Despain analyzes the misguided tradition of the "bark." Read Full Article

Legislating The Virtual World "Virtual worlds are moving into the mainstream, and technology is blurring the boundaries between our activities in online and real-world spaces. When you can spend real dollars to buy virtual goods, it's hard to say it's only a game. Especially when people quit...

Play Like a 3-Year-Old "Did you know you can win the first level of Star Wars just by standing in one place, turning in constant circles and holding down the "X" button? Aunt Wendy got something right. He was thrilled. And when he heard the cheerful chimes, a signal to those of all ages that...

Crunch Time "All eyes turned to the two empty desks next to Joey and Smith. They were part of one cubicle pod, and until a few days ago all the desks had occupants. Nobody ever talked about what happened to Leon and Uri. They just didn't show up the day after the last missed deadline. Anton...

Play Like a 3-Year-Old "Did you know you can win the first level of Star Wars just by standing in one place, turning in constant circles and holding down the "X" button? Aunt Wendy got something right. He was thrilled. And when he heard the cheerful chimes, a signal to those of all ages that...