Microsoft's Radical Bet On A New Type Of Design Thinking

On one otherwise unremarkable day in May 2013, August de los Reyes fell out of bed and hurt his back. Forty-two years old at the time, he was just six months into his dream job at Microsoft: running design for Xbox and righting a franchise that was drifting due to mission creep. At first, de los Reyes was worried that the fall was serious; he went to the ER and was assured that he was fine. Yet several hospital trips later, he found himself undergoing emergency surgery. His spine had been fractured all along. His spinal cord had been damaged. With breathtaking quickness, he was unable to walk ever again. De los Reyes has the reassuring smile and steady calm of a high-school guidance counselor, and an almost-spiritual attachment to video games. He likes to tell people that the universe is play, and that we all have a moral imperative to play.