[MUD-Dev] DGN: Reasons for play[was: EmergentBehaviors spawnedfrom...]

[John Buehler]

cruise writes:
> John Buehler spake thusly...

>> Do all such activities overcome some challenge?  Yeah, sure.
>> They all accomplish a state change in the universe, and that
>> inherently means that something else had to give in to the
>> change.  So much for the academic analysis.  The important point
>> here is not to focus on overcoming a challenge, but to delivering
>> the delightful experience.

> I'm writing this exactly /for/ the academic analysis. For me the
> fundemental nature of games is competition. The entire "delightful
> experience" is overcoming a challenge, of winning through
> adversity. What we need to do is to find new challenges, that
> don't involve fighting or direct competition. Socialisation is a
> challenge - one of the most intricate and complex of games. There
> are, no doubt, infinite ways to do it. But, at its core, a game is
> competition. If there is no competition, it's a movie, or a story.

What I'm hearing is that entertainment is derived either by
participation or by observation, and that participation necessarily
involves overcoming challenges.  I'm postulating that by dropping
the observation component, you've lost half of the available
entertaining moments that can take place, either in conjuction with
participation, or apart.  As an example, delighting an explorer is
strongly predicated on observing stuff.  By focusing on overcoming a
challenge, one might think that the challenge involved with
*finding* the stuff to observe is the key to the entertainment.

In a quirk of logic, even observing stuff is a state change in the
universe and could be called a case of overcoming a challenge, which
is why I discarded the value of a purely academic analysis.  Which
is not to say that I ignore all attempts at understanding how to
deliver a delightful experience.  I'm a rational man, and believe in
analysis.  What I don't believe is that overcoming challenges is the
key to presenting entertainment in a multiplayer environment.

I'm replying here because I think that your view is shared by the
majority of the list participants, and it produces blind spots for
designers.  Perhaps this is why I'm always bringing up Disneyland as
an example of how to delight people; it is an entertaining mix of
participation and observation.

JB
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