New Product Creation as a Constructivist Process: Videogames as Acts of Creativity and Rational Thinking

This paper examines the new product creation process in videogames a product that incorporates large quantities of creative talent and effort. Using various secondary and primary (interview and ethnographic) data, we identify three main characteristics that are involved in the creation of videogames: inspirations are significant in their creation, they are constructed from a wide variety of cultural and other influences, and they have evolutionary aspects. These three aspects are interrelated. We also demonstrate that the creation of videogames involves a large variety of types of creative thinking processes. However, rational thinking processes, defined as problem-solving, planning and other processes, are also needed, as well as processes at the group level. This provides us with a new kind of framework for identifying and understanding products, especially ones that are constructed from cultural and many other influences, or that involve the convergence of technologies as well as other kinds of inputs.