Why is this blog a mish-mash of sports and politics, economics and game design?
The simple answer is that the game that pays my bills is both a sports simulation and an economic simulation.
The more complicated answer is public policy is game design. And yet legislators seem to be among the worst possible game designers.
A well-designed sports game is one that is easy to play for any sports fan. If you know the sport, you should be able to use the simulation as an interface between you and enjoyment of that sport. You shouldn't get frustrated just trying to understand how the game works.
Similarly, well-designed public policy should create a smooth interface between citizens and the basic laws of economics that allow them. A tax system that flushes more than 20% of the economy down the drain is bad game design, regardless of whether it is inherently "fair" or "unfair".
Although I have been writing games since I was five years old, I majored in public policy because I wanted to apply good game design to something more important than computer games. After 20 years, I'm still writing computer games for a living, but that hasn't stopped me from trying to fix bad game design when I see it.
