Kreativitet under krävande förhållanden : En fallstudie inom spelindustrin

The recent growth of the games market has created a demand in methods to ensure that games are being developed with as minimal amount of delays and mistakes as possible. To lower the risk, the game companies use agile software development, and to face the hard competition of the overcrowded market, the companies demand creativity and innovation now more than ever. However, we meet some challenges when trying to be creative on demand, when the creative design process gets tough, when the time is short, our motivation is low, or if we’ve encountered the renowned “Creative Block”. The purpose of this study is to find out what impact the agile method has on the creative workflow in game design, and how we, based on related theories and the individual experiences of the employees of a gaming company, can support and encourage the creative process during demanding conditions. To answer these questions, a case study on a gaming company is adopted. With related litterature and qualitative interviews with game designers, graphic artists and user experience designers, where the study seeks data on an individual level. The conclusion is that the agile method aims to support creativity but relies on the employees to deliver the work. Creative blocks among the employees can often be seen as the result of a negative attitude towards actually dealing with the creative task. Although, demanding situations and creative blocks can be prevented by trying to see the potential of our task instead of the difficulties, through utilizing creative tension and by breaking up our initial fixed thoughts. We also find out that the level of creativity we are able to achieve during our problem solving is a result of our frame of mind, where it’s not about the usual misconception whether you are creative or not. It is instead a question whether we create the conditions to be able to use the creativity we already have.