No-code, No life

Three years ago (perhaps more), there was a mini-controversy across LinkedIn and (RIP) Twitter over ‘team of one’ game teams. Teams of one identified as such; others disagreed - an egregious case of political in/correctness.

Recently I had a chat with a designer and startup founder. They shared hope around how automating coding via LLMs may enable a one-wo(man) app design team. Responded somewhat bluntly, "Perhaps, but this isn't business".

Not the best answer.

What about the one team?

In games, team of one has always been a thing. I need not quote names since Thomas was alone, and you did spend five nights at Freddie's after Mainichi playing Elite in 1984… Okay… Elite wasn’t (they were two). Undertales of solo developers abound.

The barrier to entry has dropped; making compelling games without much technical/artistic skills is easier (and more pointless) than ever before.

Throwing assets in the mix made it possible to go and say "Sure, but you didn't make this on your own".

Whereas nobody would have gone on to say, "Sure, but your game is running on Windows. Did you author the OS?”.

This has happened before. Renaissance geniuses weren't just artists; they were engineers, mixed pigments, designed flying machines. Michelangelo got paint in his eyes - a far cry from Jason Allen’s ethereal technique.

In sum: you do not need a large group of people to build a compelling product.

Creativity across the board

I am attached to the concept of authoring. Authors create personal works; we (consumers) get a personal experience. The genius of (not only) music and writing is in shaping personal experience through consuming personal works.

I have never watched Titanic, you have. Purposely: creativity is a bridge no one will cross if we all are on the same shore.

Which does not make one the ideal team size. One is a team size. A good size. Two is a good size. Three is a good size...

Teams get creative in different ways.

In recent years, making apps has become easier. Back in 1998, when I created my first app, I designed a custom window system; in 2008, I wrote a game engine for my first game. Today, we have codeless, in continuity with the team of one ideal.

In software, it is not rare for designers to feel disempowered. Whereas engineers can build anything provided they set their mind to it... Concurrently, there is a sense of creativity being vertical, with designers leading the effort while engineers focus on the details. Then you get the idea that designers would be much more productive if they did not have to communicate with engineers.

Yet, crossovers between design and engineering are not rare. If you get serious about creativity, you will necessarily encounter Maggie Boden's Creative Mind. Boden's work is equal parts dedicated to creativity in arts, science, and engineering.

No code, no life

Where no-code is breaking down (it isn't) isn't, okay, can we write apps without code or not? We surely can (did not need LLMs to make this happen). What's more surprising is how engineers ceaselessly toy with the idea of taking themselves out of the loop, whereas artists feel outraged when their work is automated. No, it isn’t surprising.

No code, and the 5th wall

(1) Wired assumptions about how things (are meant to) work. Trivial example: many teams do not design their own widgets. Meaning that the interaction design effort is now derivative; diegetic interfaces in (mainstream) games are not progressing because we aren’t thinking about interaction beyond the widgets.

This isn't only about computing. The printing press, alphabetization, typewriters, Unicode, spellcheckers... have contributed to the sedimentation of a bounded medium; one friend told me (1995), “we are no longer writing to communicate, we are writing to find out whether we have anything to say” - also: we are no longer inventing writing.

(2) When discussions between art, science, and engineering are not happening, innovation isn't breaking that fifth wall. Where an engineer would exclaim "I can make this!"? Silence. Where a designer stubbornly asserts, "Make this work"? Silence. In between... obviously! Defeaningly so.

In games: before no-code, we got tools like Blueprints, which is designed for… designers to not be talking to coders?

Imagine tools for boosting (not negating) cross-disciplinary success.

Zero, the forbidden number

Around 2010 I came across a forum post where people said okay, apps are now free, at least we can't go lower than this. Others swiftly responded, "Hell no, I'll pay users to install apps". Fast forwarding to the 20s, Hell No has not percolated. Apple does not routinely credit my account for using apps (boo). Still, marketing budgets often exceed 50% to 70% of the total dev cost. Not so relatedly (if you get my drift)…

The minimum number of developers needed to build an app isn't one.

We do not need developers to make apps. Nor do we need financial advisers to make financial decisions.

Do we need to consume goods and services anymore? Am I the product or the user? Top of the food chain? Brainstuff?

In a distant future, alien combat units do not go around catching our children with sticky spider webaloo; still, they might break the internet. Playing Kitsune Tails.

Keep it together.

Photo credit: Chen-Pan Liao via Wikimedia Commons (CC 3.0 Attribution-Share-Alike)