I especially like the second point in his post scriptum. The layering between M, D, and A is a useful conceptualization, but they’re not sealed abstraction layers: gameplay includes experiences everywhere up …

a) didn’t seem appropriate for a CS-focused workshop
b) didn’t seem fair to squish into a 5 page paper!

Having said that: We are planning a couple of extensions to this framework/layout – one that focuses more on the development/procedural aspects of MDA (most likely for GDMag or Gamasutra?), and another that explores the aesthetics/dynamics quandary w/r/t player experience. In fact – that issue (which layer comes first – which, if any, has precedence) was what kept me from publishing this for so long (I drafted the original almost a year ago). With the workshop approaching, I decided that despite its flaws (curlers and bathrobe, as my friend Kass says), it was time to send it out the door.

As always, email/comments on both of these issues most welcome and appreciated!!

:P

For example, one you’ve touched upon is the “player perspective” of the framework. “From the player’s perspective, aesthetics set the tone, which is born out in observable dynamics and eventually, operable mechanics.” Frankly, this is impossible within the domains defined by this selfsame model; a game’s aesthetics, that is the emotional experiences produced by the relationship to the artifact, cannot be manifest until at least some aspect of the dynamics have been experienced.

I can imagine an emotional response being evoked by a users appraisal of the interface (before the game system is engaged) but here I’m just being coy about what I consider to be the most glaring deficiency: the lack of consideration for interface as salient domain.