Dear Mr. Engle I am gathering now information about "Creative Thinking" and its implications to business managers and in other fields . More particularly , I am most interested in the Creativity Thinking Industry Games software and other tools used to stimulate creative thinking and innovation also seminars and programs being held for the same purposes. I would be most grateful if you can send me any information you have on these subjects . Thank you very much for your efforts --Batia Guttmari Tefen Entrepreneurship Israel Dear Batia This is in response to your letter inquiring into information on creative thinking and management. I am an amateur, as are most people involved in wargaming. I am not certain we have what you are looking for but since I've never gotten a letter from the Near East before I could not pass up the chance to answer it. Wargaming is divided into two basic groups. Professionals are employed by armed forces around the world, and by research companies like Rand, to do serious simulations to predict outcomes of wars. A few other professional wargamers work in the game hobby industry in companies like Avalon Hill or TSR (of Dungeons and Dragons fame). These folks are mainly driven to make games that will sell -- not necessarily be the most creative. It mainly falls on the amateurs to Introduce new ideas into the industry. I will attempt to explain how this creative process works. Creative amateurs are often on the edge of the professional ranks. We are Involved in fields that either use games professionally or which deal with creative thinking. I for instance am a psychiatric social worker. I use games as a method of doing psychotherapy. Other gamers are involved in teaching, medicine, the military, or the law. The drive to "make a better mouse trap" is what gets many started. once a person begins working though, that is when troubles start. Wargaming is a world wide hobby. I correspond with people all over the world, but for the most part in England and the USA. This means we are very far apart. A working amateur game maker is unlikely to be close at hand to other of like interest. In isolation, creative work is slow and unproductive. Even if major innovations are made, no one else knows about them, so the hobby is not advanced. Gamers come together often one on one, but this also falls to spur creativity or disseminate results. Instead, three institutions work to move creativity along. The most important communication device are newsletters. I publish "Experimental Game Group", a magazine dedicated to new ideas (especially my own). In England a group called Wargame Developments has put out a magazine called "Nugget" for the last eleven years. Paddy Griffin, a military historian and until recently a lecturer at Sandhurst, got this forum going. Other Journals like the Solo Wargamer's Association newsletter "Lone Warrior" and in the USA "Midwest Wargamer's Association Newsletter", MWAN for short, also pull game makers together by providing a way for them to communicate. Finished ideas and more importantly, half baked ideas are found throughout the above newsletters. As you can see from the copy of EGG that I sent you, these are not professionally produced products. The spelling is poor and the Ideas often not original, but what new ideas that are there grow. We game makers seem to feed off one another's Ideas the more we talk about them. I am very much indebted to those creative thinkers who were before me. Even in cases where their ideas have nothing to do with mine, just the fact that new things are being discussed spurs me to think more. The discipline of writing further shapes and refines creative work. Most game makers drop out of the process at this point. Those who stay often find that only after writing a problem down are they able to see a solution. one solution often leads to other solutions. I generally run "play by mail" games in EGG, to refine my ideas on certain topics. I am not involved in electronic mail, but it to is a forum for game playing/testing and discussion. The whole point is that games do not start as finished products. First the ideas have to be mined out, and run through the mill. The second institution of creativity are convention games. The first wargame conventions in the USA started in the mid 1950s in California. Now they are held all over the country. Running a game at a convention means having it in a workable form that is presentable iIn public. Conventions impose built in dead lines on when projects have to be done. This pressure Is helpful in goading a slow creator to get to work. Preparing a game often has more to do with readying the props of the event than refining basic ideas. This kind of corollary work gives the mind a chance to rest and see the work from a different perspective. Many ideas for the future can come out of this look. Running a game in much like a performance art work. The act of doing it, is all that it is. Some referees run games like a P. T. Barnum Circus, but whatever the style, the game is on view to the public. Bugs are spotted, people are able to give direct feedback on what they see, and possible market potentials are evident. Many ideas are good for one person to run, but are not generalizable. My early work in Matrix Gaming fit into this category. Ideas that are more developed, are run to create a market for their various games. People play in a game. See it run, or hear about it being run, come to expect that they could run a game like it. By running similar games over a period of years a new game idea builds up a "market force" that leads more and more people to try It out. This is a very tricky thing to get started and feeds into the last way of spreading an idea. Eventually game ideas reach the market place in the form of a product. I do not believe that this is the only way an idea can disseminate, but in a Capitalist society few of us have the resources to publish and freely distribute our games. Gentlemen gamers may be involved in the creative end, but actually producing games is quite costly as is distributing them. Some products are put out by professional companies, driven by the profit motive. Unfortunately there is very little profit to be had in this field, especially for creative new games. People may talk new games, but they buy tried and true ideas. I have lost money in this business before so anymore I aim at a low end produce that is not meant to sell widely. I've sent you a copy of my most recent work, "Campaign In a Day." Matrix Games are a new idea that is not at all marketable In a big way. Fortunately, by using a computer, a photo copier, and a saddle stapler, I am able to put out a passable produce that will spread the idea around and not bankrupt me. My sincerest hope is that some sharp sales type will come along and "steal" the idea and invest his money into it to go mass market. I do not have the business skills to even dream of doing that. Who knows, it may happen, but even if it doesn't, the idea will spread and develop due to the presence of the product. Since as you will recall, much game making starts from the desire to improve on a preexisting game. That seems to me to be the way games are developed in the wargaming hobby. Sometimes they have applications beyond just war gaming. In EGG #20, I have an example of a Matrix Game used to run a business simulation. I've used MGs to simulate the management of a US mental health center, so that we clinicians could plan what we were gong to do to get a certain personnel policy changed. I've suggested to a local abuse prevention group I belong to that we use a similar MG to plan strategies on how to convince a very conservative community that beating one's wife is not commanded by God. I hope that this has been of use to you. If you want to learn more about this part of simulation gaming you might try writing to Wargame Development's Nugget. Good luck in your project. --Chris Engle Back to Experimental Games Group # 20 Table of Contents Back to Experimental Games Group List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1992 by Chris Engle This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com