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As a designer, your job is to run a 24/7 simulation of the game in your head, play it in your imagination, find flaws and gaps in it, so, when an idea seems cool, you can immediately tell what it'll do to the rest of the simulation.
When you have a hard time imagining how a system will interact with another system by modeling the situation in your head (usually because of complexity), or when you know how, but need to convince someone of it – that's where things like UR, prototyping, and analytics come in.
When you get a surprising UR or analytics result, that's the equivalent of an idea. It just comes in the form of a report, a spreadsheet, or a graph – but it's an idea alright.
Data aren't prescriptive, and knowing what exactly to do with them isn't anyone's job but yours.
Data aren't prescriptive, and knowing what exactly to do with them isn't anyone's job but yours.
But you know how you run the simulation as a designer and see what fits the gameplay and what doesn't? Similar simulations are run by writers, artists, coders, and everyone else on the team.
The synchronization of all independent simulations of a game is called "game vision."
The synchronization of all independent simulations of a game is called "game vision."
This is a very long way of saying that a game vision isn't a powerpoint, and certainly isn't an idea you've DMed me, asking if we can develop it – it's a complex, living, constantly updating shared understanding of a game. It's not something you can just send in an email.
