Until yesterday the name Chris Crawford was a name that I had heard mentioned many times but didn’t really know much about. His book Chris Crawford on Game Design is often cited in books on video game design and appears to be the next classical text on games after Huizingas’ Homo Ludens. Crawford also started the Games Developer Conference and as such you would expect him to still be in the public eye from time to time. However he is not. Crawford left the industry in 1992 after charging out at the end his Dragon Speech. He left to pursue what he called ‘the dragon’, a metaphor for games as artistic expression.
Yesterday I watched these videos below and learnt a lot about what I feel to be a very interesting and progressive character, Chris Crawford. I encourage you to watch these two videos in order to get a better understanding of him and his vision.