This post was originally written in Italian by Paolo Gambardella. It has been translated by an AI agent and may contain inaccuracies.
Seth Godin published yesterday The Builder’s Creed, a rewrite of Christian Larson’s old Optimist’s Creed (1911), filtered through Reid Hoffman’s recent thinking on what it means to build something in an era that constantly asks itself whether it’s still worth doing. I read it twice, and the second time I thought: we game designers should have one of our own. We’re builders too — it’s just that what we build doesn’t exist until it takes shape in someone else’s head.
It brought to mind the opening of Jesse Schell’s The Art of Game Design, where he points out that game design isn’t one craft but many (engineer, storyteller, psychologist, mathematician), all held together by a single skill: listening. Listening to the game taking shape under your hands, listening to players, listening to your gut when something feels off before you can even put it into a slide.
Towards myself
- I’ll remember that the game isn’t the pieces, the code, or the document: it’s the experience the player builds in their own head, and I design for that, not for the slide.
- I’ll trust the build more than the document: less talk, more substance!
- I’ll listen to my gut when something feels wrong, even before I can prove it with data.
- I’ll stay a beginner in at least one discipline outside games, because the best ideas in this industry almost always come from people who didn’t start here.
Towards the work
- I’ll ship the build, not just the document about the build.
- I’ll protect the vision the project was born from, before a spreadsheet starts editing it.
- I’ll treat content as a means to reach an experience, never as the goal itself.
- I’ll hold inspiration and pragmatism together: the vision that gives a game its soul, and the market that keeps the lights on.
Towards players
- Players are people, not funnels. I design for what they’ll remember, not just for what they’ll spend.
- I won’t confuse a compulsive loop with a fun one. I know the difference exists even when the metrics don’t show it.
- I’ll make the work behind the game visible whenever I can: it’s the only real antidote to people taking everything for granted.
Towards the industry
- I’ll hire for curiosity, not years of experience. This industry runs on outsiders.
- I’ll say my trade-offs out loud, instead of letting a KPI take the blame for them down the line.
- I’ll keep believing that a better industry is buildable. Buildable, one honest game at a time.
I wrote this quickly, almost on a whim. Like the Sagrada Família, it’ll need revisiting scaffold by scaffold.