[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] What is a game? (again) was:[Excellent commentary on Vanguard's diplomacy system]

[Sean Howard]

"cruise" <cruise at casual-tempest.net> wrote:
> Agreed. Perhaps the question shouldn't be "what is a game?" but, "what
> makes an enjoyable interactive experience?"

That is a terrible question, partly because "enjoyable" is completely
subjective and because "enjoyable" is a product required only by
entertainment - games can be a lot of things beyond entertainment, even if
the game industry doesn't care yet.

> At which point you may stop playing because of time constraints,
> frustration, boredom, etc. and therefore not reaching the goal. Failure
> doesn't have to be specifically defined in the explicit game rules to
> exist.

Failure is, I believe, something which is beyond the player's control.
Getting bored or frustrated is not failure. It might be the result of
repeated failure, but also of different types of success as well. Failure
is a penalization for playing the game "wrong" - boredom is a side effect
of playing the wrong game :)

>> <snip> For instance, if you are creating a character in City of
>> Heroes, what color will his outfit be? <snip>
>
> It's a challenge I've set myself - find a colour, pattern or costume
> piece I like, and that conveys the image or ideal my character embodies.
> Again, the challenge doesn't have to be inherent in the game system
> itself.

Okay, now you are just stretching. Seriously, if I asked a thousand CoH
players if they considered the outfit designing aspect challenging, all
thousand (including yourself) would say no. I see no reason why you should
change your answer just because someone pointed it out.

> The gamestate is in your head, and it changes as you read each section
> of story.

Huh? Again, you are stretching. The gamestate is what page you are on -
but that doesn't make a gamebook into a complex system.

> Indeed, it's basically psychology. But so is "fun", which I think is
> generally something we want to generate in players. Understanding how
> and why people make decisions, and feel about those decisions, is an
> important part of understanding what produces "fun."

A large part of what you are describing is behaviorism - the idea that our
decisions are based, modified, or even controlled by external stimulae.
This works on training puppies and rats running through mazes, but humans
have a complex inner state that cannot be ignored. Temporary things, like
your environment or how your day was, can make huge changes in what you
believe to fun. Likewise, so can more lengthy aspects, like self esteem
and temperment.

What is "fun"? It's a very different thing for every person on every day.
Understanding "fun" is at best a weighted guess. You probably wouldn't be
able to guess what I would consider fun right this very second without
knowing my current mood, but you might be able to make a generalization
about me based on experience dealing with me. Failing that, you can
project what you think is fun and hope it sticks, or make a model based on
statistical analysis and study groups to figure out what "most" people
think is fun and hope I belong. But you will never truly understand what
produces "fun". It will never be anything more than a guess.

For the record, I enjoy arguing on the internet, being a devil's advocate,
and writing needlessly verbose essays on topics of relatively no
importance - but that much you've probably already figured out :)

-- 
Sean Howard