Over the next couple of weeks, I will begin publishing on DitM several supplemental essays that are meant to compliment essays that have been submitted to academic journals. It is my hope that these essays will allow me an alternative venue in which to talk about some of the ideas in ways which I perhaps could not otherwise. The first is meant to extend upon the foundational core category "Creative Collaborative Practice," (CCP) which I have deemed so integral to what makes videogame development practice possible. Because all of the upcoming essays I am developing plug into this core category, it seems fruitful to define it a bit.

CCP is, at its core, about those factors that both constrain and compel our capacity and desire to design/create/develop new and innovative systems. It has significant impacts for how we do that as well. So it is about how processes, people, technologies, laws, policies (government and corporate), disciplinary identities, and other "forces" fit into that overall system. Ultimately this is what I am interested in when I talk about CCP.

The above picture is my attempt to capture how some of those pieces of the system fit together into the larger one. Though this image is not a generated "Cloud Map," of my dissertation, it likely could be. It's certainly something I plan to do with my ongoing writing efforts to keep me aware of those pieces of the system (puzzle) I'm attempting to reason out.

Ultimately this is why I believe "Developers in the Mist" matters so much. Because I see in the videogame industry and videogame development practice a world which offers significant insights into other realms of human endevours. It is with this in mind that I begin to advance this argument and those that will likely emerge from it. I hope to see you along the way.