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

[cruise]

Thus spake Sean Howard...
> 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.

We'll have to disagree on that point. If I'm not enjoying it, it's no 
longer a game.

> 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 :)

Failing is defined in the space between the player's mind and the "game 
world" - If I'm playing the Sims and my characters all die, have I 
failed? The software might think so, but I may well think I succeeded 
because that was my intention when I walled them in.

>> 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.

Okay, so you don't like the word "challenge" - how would you describe a 
choice that makes me stop and think, has me trying various options 
before finding a "solution" I'm happy with? How, cognitively, is that 
different from trying to find the weakspot in an enemy's base in Supreme 
Commander? Different motivation, but the same overall shape of thought 
process.

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

No, that's just part of the gamestate. That's like saying where your 
counter is along the track of a Monopoly board is the entire gamestate. 
Or, perhaps, better, is saying the entirety of a P&P gamestate is summed 
up by the character sheets.

> 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.

Absolutely. That's why I don't play the same game everyday. But I most 
certainly play some games more than others - so there are some constants 
within that variation. It's those I'm trying to focus on.

> 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 you, an individual, at a moment in time, of course it's only going 
to be a guess. But for a large number of people, averaged over time? I'm 
pretty damn sure we can figure out some reliable pointers to what they 
enjoy.

> 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 :)

And I suffer from a constant urge to grok everything :P