TAG
#design-pillars
0 reviews · 2 essays
Related essays
Randelshofer et al.: Fifteen UX Leaders in AAA Studios on Pre-Production Decisions — Fukai Reads
A qualitative study by Ivana Randelshofer (Ubisoft Düsseldorf) and colleagues at the University of Waterloo HCI Games Group and elsewhere. Semi-structured interviews with 15 senior UX leaders from AAA studios (Blizzard, EA DICE, Guerrilla, Larian, Remedy, Ubisoft, and others) analysed with reflexive thematic analysis. Findings: pre-production decisions blend theory, experience and instinct; cross-functional structures (strike teams, competency teams) align player needs with production constraints; academic frameworks work best as discussion starters, not prescriptions. arXiv preprint posted August 2026, not peer reviewed. A rare look at what game production actually feels like from the UX side.
Geheeb et al.: Let an LLM Poke at Your Game Design Pillars — Fukai Reads
A paper on game design pillars and LLMs by Julian Geheeb and colleagues at the Technical University of Munich. Pillars are heavily used in industry but almost unexamined academically; the paper gives them a formal definition and quality criteria, then hands structural checking, contradiction detection and feature evaluation to an LLM in a prototype called SPINE. A 42-hour game jam and interviews with four developers produce a consistent picture: useful at the moment of putting a pillar into words, thinning with each rewrite iteration, and unable to recognise deliberate juxtaposition when flagging contradictions. Peer-reviewed at FDG '26.
