Creativity

Creativity has some element in everything around us. Architecture, films, games .... their all products of creativity. Even a cup was someone being creative in ways of holding water. But what is creativity? where is it? and where is it in games?

In games creativity both can and cant hindered and by technical constraints, it depends on the medium. Concept art isnt nesseceraly hindered as a painting or a drawing can go as far as an artists imagination and creativity. But creating this world in a game can have its constraints. Ben Mathis' speech lay fine example to this as he compared Fallout 3's concept artists vision of an atmospheric Apocalyptic Washington DC to its actual gameplay vision. Not to shun the game but i would agree with him and say the constraints of actually making the game didnt add up to the artists vision and creativeness. But this is in just some aspects. AI and modeling can have these restrictions as the designs need to be plausible and able to work in a real time environment but plots and narratives on the other hand can house as much creativity as an artist desires.
But during the production of a game no one specific person 'does' creativity, as creativity is a thought process its always expressed in each individuals work through the medium they are working in. Creativity is not a final outcome nor can it present itself pyhsically, its more the thought process to accomplish the final outcome. Same as the final products themselves arent neccesseraly creative. Inventive or beautiful they may be, the creativity is in our own heads, a passageway, we express creativity through the product. Someone in charge of producing a character isnt making creativity, he is making a character, and the final outcome is a character. But the methods they use to make it can be creative and can be expressed through the design of the character. This is probably why College/Uni interviews like to see sketchbooks and rough drawings because they are the parts where your creativity is showing through being applied to reach the final outcome. Everyone has ideas and creativity in their heads, and people such as lecturers are curious to see everyones own creativity processes, but channeling creativity into a usefull format is sometimes the problem. But why does everyone think this has to be channeled as art?

Creativity, although usually stereotyped with art, can be expressed in literally any form of medium, clothes we wear, the nicknames and words we invent for each other ... any form of self expression can be creative. And as for art its also strongly present in nearly every other form of work. I mean the Aeroplane was a creative invention, showing scientists are being creative in producing final products. But it doesnt always have to be something thats never been done before. In this day and age if you have thought of it, it probably has already been done (rule 34 of the internet). So creativity can be taking of something old or used and manifesting it into something new, and this isnt neccessaraly plagarism. Not if the final outcome of your creativity is an original idea from ways of looking at and exsisting or old issue differently. Look at university or college projects, same breif (Organic Character etc) but yet 50+ different and creative outcomes.