games on games. game design as critical reflexive practice

Can video game design be compared to more formalized practices of scientific research or speculation within game studies? And, by virtue of an intellectual leap that in itself calls for discussion, can video games be considered as an efficient vehicle for the presentation of certain kinds of knowledge, in the same way in which papers, conference presentations, and books are? What Ratto defines as critical making (2011), the practice of producing artifacts of different sorts in order to supplement and extend critical reflection, may apply to video games as well. Forms of research through design (Zimmerman, Forlizzi and Evenson, 2007), of carpentry (Bogost, 2012), and speculative design (Dunne and Raby, 2013) have been analyzed, discussed, and maybe most importantly, put into practice in different fields of cultural and scientific production. To address this gap and to map the current (and future) state of self-reflexive games, we asked both researchers and designers to imagine an application of these concepts to video games. Paraphrasing Zimmerman, Forlizzi and Evenson, what does research through game design might mean? What epistemological insights can we derive from the act of designing, making and playing video games?