"It's time to dispel the myths about video games"

As a young girl, she spent hours playing with the first video games. And the magic she experienced with those games, in her own words, led her to want to be a video game designer from an early age. For the last 15 years, Tatiana Delgado (@arilea) has worked as a video game designer in companies such as Rebel Act Studios, Enigma Software Productions, Tequila Works, Gameloft and the successful King, creator of Candy Crush, among others. Considered one of Spain's most talented video game designers, Delgado has recently embarked upon a new professional venture in an independent studio, of which she is co-founder, to develop video games based on virtual reality. A little while ago, she was in Barcelona to attend the symposium on digital game cultures and digital learning organized by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya's (UOC) research group GAME, which debated the role of video games, and their players and creators, in modern society.

As a young girl, she spent hours playing with the first video games. And the magic she experienced with those games, in her own words, led her to want to be a video game designer from an early age. For the last 15 years, Tatiana Delgado (@arilea) has worked as a video game designer in companies such as Rebel Act Studios, Enigma Software Productions, Tequila Works, Gameloft and the successful King, creator of Candy Crush, among others. Considered one of Spain's most talented video game designers, Delgado has recently embarked upon a new professional venture in an independent studio, of which she is co-founder, to develop video games based on virtual reality. A little while ago, she was in Barcelona to attend the symposium on digital game cultures and digital learning organized by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya's (UOC) research group GAME, which debated the role of video games, and their players and creators, in modern society.

A video game is a game; a game which is played in a digital format. It can tell a story, it can teach things, it can simply be fun, but above all else, it is a game whose purpose is to entertain.

Because they are games, they can make boring or unpleasant tasks much more fun to do. When you play a video game, time flies by. So, people have wanted to transfer this sensation to other fields of activity, so that doing the same old jobs isn't such a grind. This is something along the lines of what gamification is about. That is, turning into a game, or a video game, a task that by its nature is not a game so that it is more pleasant to perform. This is why video games are starting to be used in schools and companies.

Yes, but it is a myth that is starting to unravel. For example, I learned to speak English thanks to video games. Some people learn history, others use them to develop psychomotor skills, playing video games can help in socializing, to give just a few examples. Of course, I went to English classes as well and I studied, but I have no doubt that playing certain games helped me learn quicker. We shouldn't forget that the video game is entertainment, but that needn't be all it is.

Well, you can't learn everything through video games. And it is important to recognize this. You can make some things more fun and generate challenges that help you learn certain things, but, as I said earlier, you can't learn English with video games alone. What a video game can do is accelerate, facilitate or motivate certain types of learning. And perhaps we are still not yet sufficiently aware of this possibility and we could do more in this direction.

Video games, board games and role playing all share in common a problem-solving aspect. The game poses dilemmas and difficulties that must be overcome and this requires developing, individually or sometimes as a group, problem-solving strategies or creative behaviours. Video games help build solution-finding or problem-solving skills. They can also help you understand that it is often necessary to work as a team and other people's help is needed.

Yes, because the label "gamer" is used to refer to everyone who plays video games. It's a bit like filmgoers: there are all sorts. Not everyone who goes to the cinema is an inveterate film buff. It's the same with video games; there are all sorts of people for all sorts of games. A middle-aged lady may play Candy Crush, like my mother, and she is just as much a gamer as someone who plays Call of Duty. Ultimately, we're all players. I think that it's time to dispel the myths about video games. Lots of people play, and we're very diverse. It's not true that we're wasting time when we play.

This is more recent and it is happening above all because new game genres have been created. But you have to remember that not all women like casual and not all men like hardcore. There are lots of different video games; there's something for all tastes. The numbers prove it but the fact is that society as a whole still does not quite believe it. Marketing has helped a lot. Now, we're not just seeing muscle-bound military types and, what's more, the idea is starting to take hold that there's nothing wrong with playing video games. As I said earlier, there's been a very negative press that said that playing was a waste of time. What we're really talking about is entertainment, which is something very different. We all need entertainment, each one in our own way.

There are all sorts. In a video game about Conan, there will be bikini-clad female warriors, it's true, and also men wearing thongs. But in the Conan films, there are also bikini-clad female warriors and men wearing thongs. What I mean is that there has to be a bit of everything, and there's a place for everything in our world if we know how to interpret it and situate it within the whole. What wouldn't be at all desirable is if all video games or all films portrayed sexist images of women and society. Fortunately, in spite of everything, there is variety. For example, in Mass Effect, I can choose the character I want to play with. And although it is true that there are hypersexualized female characters, there are others that are more normal and more like modern urban women. The same can be said of the male characters. And the player can choose.

Yes, it is very important because it provides a theoretical base on which to create better games. The video game industry is still in the infancy stage and, until now, we have done things relying more on gut instinct. I think that now we have reached a state of maturity that allows us, forces us even, to reflect on what we are doing and how we are doing it. We can apply many of the things that come out of academic research to make stronger, more entertaining and more useful games. And it also helps counteract the stigma around gamers, who are labelled as asocial, garage teenagers. We need to be more open and academic research can help in this. In fact, what we need is to believe that we are more than what society thinks. At the same time, we must be humble; we still have a lot to learn. We can't go from 0 to 100 in one go. We need to do things gradually to earn people's respect.

I entered this industry because I wanted people to have fun. When I played with video games as a young girl, I experienced a kind of magic and this is what I want to convey to other people. This is my strongest motivation. In addition, as we have said, it makes me very pleased to see how, for example, video games can play a helpful role in society. For example, it's touching to see how kids in hospital use video games to take their minds off their illness and experience a little happiness.

Normally, the target audience is given by the company that hires you to design the game. And, depending on this target audience, you focus on a specific type of content. If my audience is basically teenagers, for example, the mechanical aspects would have a level of difficulty way beyond what a game for housewives would have. You need to put yourself in the shoes of the audience that the game is intended for. For example, what you can't do is make a game that you would like to play. Your job is to make it attractive for the target audience. Every time I have a prototype, it is important to have a target gamer play it and listen to what he or she says about it. For example, if a player does not understand or does not like your game, it's not the player's problem, it's your problem. You must make whatever changes it takes until he or she likes it.

You need to find the right balance between all the ingredients: it must be aesthetically attractive, it must have a story, it must have a certain level of difficulty, etc. All of this depending on what you want to explain. A game that wants to give priority to the story cannot have a puzzle, because a complicated puzzle usually involves being stuck for three days until you find out how to continue, but by then you have lost the thread of the story. For us, puzzles are the challenges that the game generates and which must be solved with astuteness or logic to continue playing. A puzzle-based game that needs a lot of thinking cannot have a very complicated story because you need to focus on solving the puzzles. You need to think about your audience and find a balance in the ingredients so that this audience will have a pleasant experience.

My favourite game is Portal 2, because of how it blends puzzle design and story-telling; it's a unique balance. It's simply brilliant.

Yes, of course, it's what I want to do. I felt that it was time to work for myself and, with a few colleagues, I have started this new video game studio where the games use virtual reality. Virtual reality is changing many paradigms; it changes the player's role and the creator's role. We want to explore this in depth, with mobile control units, sensors, goggles and so on. There is a lot that can be done and I believe that now is the best time to do it.