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The point of a game is not to win
- Jensson 3y agoIt took decades until they realized that people like cooperative games more than competitive games. It is so funny to me how we don't really understand humans and what makes things fun to them. Apparently pack animals likes to do things with the pack instead of against the pack.
- voisin 3y agoAlmost like the entire economy shouldn’t be a cutthroat competition of misery but perhaps a cooperative system designed for human flourishing?
- jj999 3y agoIs there authors who described such a system?
- eru 3y agoWhere is that cutthroat competition of misery that you describe? Serving customers is a rather cooperative affair between, supplier, workers and customers etc. Have you ever participated in the economy? Of course, all parties are generally free to choose who they want to cooperate with. Customers can switch coffee shops, if they like the offerings of the other guy better. Workers can switch jobs, too.
- makeitdouble 3y agoPlaying Overcooked with one's partner is a thing on its own. It can be wonderful, or something you try once to never even mention it again.
- Nursie 3y agoIt’s a fine line isn’t it? We enjoyed the overcooked stuff, but came close to arguments a few times. Worked best when we communicated what each of us was doing. “It Takes Two”, OTOH, was really good and worked very nicely, at least in part because division of labour is built into the game mechanics in various places.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> It took decades until they realized that people like cooperative games more than competitive games. People have lots of different tastes, and some like coop more than competitive, some like competitive more, and some prefer a robust mix of the two. Also, I’m not sure who “they” are and which decades are at issue: pute cooperative board and computer games have been around for a long time, and games that mix coopeative and competitive elements either via symmetrical teams or all-against-one play are even older, or at least widely seen earlier.
- Jensson 3y ago> cooperative board and computer games have been around for a long time I'm not aware of any cooperative board games that are older than 20 years. If there are any they must be really obscure. People did jigsaw puzzles for the cooperative experience, but those are really dull and I don't think people really consider them board games.
- eru 3y agohttps://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/438/scotland-yard https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/438/scotland-yard was released in the 1980s. And it's far from the first. (This one has teams that cooperate internally and compete externally.) In general, board games and card games with teams have a long and proud history. See eg Bridge. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_board_game#History_and_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_board_game#History...
- Jensson 3y agoScotland yard is a competitive game, I played that, it isn't cooperative. It is a team based competition. Cooperative games doesn't have an enemy team. Forcing one person to be the enemy team is not very nice, I'm not aware of any game that didn't have that competitive part that is that old.
- eru 3y ago
- sfink 3y agoAll competitive games (well, the nonfatal ones) can be cooperative games to the players determined to cooperate. Even if there's a clear winner and people are trying to win, people can collaborate and cheer each other on even when in play terms it's at their own expense. All cooperative games can be competitive games to the players determined to compete. Even if there's a shared goal that requires everyone to contribute, someone is going to contribute the most (even if only in their own mind) and can withhold or adjust their support to undercut someone else without sacrificing the end goal. And sufficiently competitive people may not even mind if the supposed goal is lost, if it provides an opportunity to noticeably excel. To some people, the word "game" implies competition. To others, it implies cooperation. I, like most, prefer to get a mix of both from any game. I enjoy watching the Halloween Baking Competition, and particularly enjoy the parts where bakers help each other even as they're trying to come out on top. (Though there has been a suspicious amount of it this season, which makes me wonder if it's somewhat staged....)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- wrp 3y agoThis is an interesting question, why it took cooperative gaming so long to become popular. I remember looking into cooperative games about 20 years ago, and they were rare. The whole genre was generally regarded as a boring activity that parents forced on their kids for ideological reasons. Now many of the most popular games are cooperative. What happened? Did society change?
- kuboble 3y agoI think the main points are that -it's much harder to design a good cooperative game as opposed to a good competitive game - there are much more games designed today - it's much easier to build a good coop game and more people are trying these days because there is a precedent that it can be done
- GaelFG 3y agoHot take : fully cooperatives board games are either bad wargames or bad role playing games. But good social activities neither less and good introductions to the genre. And yes, it's totally ok to only play theses. They are, I think still 'rares' today because game wise they are less intense and deep, so people really into gaming will prefer other games. But they are still a lot less rare than 40 years ago because there are more positively presented in culture and common and it's a lot more easy to convince people to join a board game night, especially if tell them they can avoid human competition and role playing.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y agoCoop games of good quality are still very rare. Me and my wife "ate" most of ehat is available. We don't play fpses, that excluded a good chunk
- livrem 3y agoHere is an article from 1982 arguing that more video games should have a coop mode: https://archive.org/details/Softline_Magazine_Issue_1.5/page/n49/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/Softline_Magazine_Issue_1.5/page... Also there was a bit of a solo boardgame boom around 1980 with some games also supporting (or at least suggesting) playing together with others, but it was somehow forgotten and then someone rediscovered around 2010 or so. I find it strange that I never saw a coop game from before the late 1970's though, and it is not because I have not been searching for them.
- intellectronica 3y agoThere's an entire book on that: Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse.
- runsWphotons 3y agoI like winning games and competing in zero sum games.
- mojoe 3y ago"I should emphasize, the tragically elegant thing about "the point is to win" is that winning now is a real world goal that abased hearts do sometimes actually harbor, but it's perilous as a monogoal" I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that such "abased" hearts are the most common hearts at game night, followed closely by the hearts of those who are just looking to bond and impress each other with witty repartee
- phlakaton 3y agoIt gets worse if the abased hearts are playing Hearts... "Eat it! Eat my queen of spades that you can no longer avoid! You fool!!"
- alexjplant 3y agoRandom adjacent anecdote: I got a Game Boy GameShark for Christmas when I was 8 years old (so ~1999) and distinctly remember my father furrowing his brow as I explained to him that the whole point of the device was to cheat at video games. He was initially skeptical as it involved "cheating" at games which he regarded as a negative behavior given his experience playing sports, but after explaining that it was basically a software hacking device designed to expand gameplay possibilities he understood and softened his stance. Emergent properties of gameplay are far more interesting than merely "winning" a game, especially when it involves using Pokemon summoned from memory that was never intended to be addressed or rooms in the dungeons of Koholint Island that were discarded halfway through development.
- jwestbury 3y agoAdjacent to your adjacency: My dad played video games, too. I was probably six or seven years old when we were playing through Super Mario World at the same time. One day, I came home from school and my dad had been experimenting with the Game Genie. He did shift work, and was just coming off a night shift -- he was tired, and wasn't sure exactly what code he was TRYING to enter, but whatever he DID enter ended up producing the following two effects: * Mario would cycle between three animations at all times. Walking, swimming, and walking upside down. * Mario was invincible to everything except falling down pits. I so wish we still had that code. I don't even know where I'd find a SNES Game Genie, but it was endlessly entertaining to me at that age.
- tnecniv 3y agoMy parents gave me similar looks of distaste if I ever used a cheat code, game guide, or game shark. They never punished me or anything, but it took years for me to use cheats in video games guilt free even though I knew it was whatever
- sfink 3y agoA subtlety that probably would have weakened the essay to bring up: if your goal is growth, then no, you don't want to always be the dumbest in the room. Unless, perhaps, the stronger players are fully invested in directly teaching you tutorial-style. If there is too much of a skill gap, then the weaker players just get steamrolled and learn nothing. Exploring different options doesn't help, because the stronger players will know how to best defeat those strategies if they aren't carried out perfectly. Even if the stronger players go easy on the weaker, and even intentionally leave openings and suggest they be exploited, it takes a certain level of skill and/or experience to recognize or gain from them.
- proc0 3y ago> For most games, the real objective is learning about each other, or about the game, or about some other real or abstract thing the game is evoking. Yes but this is incomplete, The learning usually has the purpose to overcome the challenge that a game is presenting to the player. Games are, in essence, puzzles. It isn't always obvious what the puzzle is, but the player can definitely tell when it is absent because there is no challenge, there is nothing to overcome, and therefore nothing to learn about. The best games tend to be excellent puzzles that have entertained players for many years. In Mario games it's platform puzzles, in RPG games it's finding a character build, in multiplayer games like fighting or FPS games, it's the other human player. So yes I agree it's not about winning. It's about solving the puzzle/challenge the game presents you with. > So remember, the play objective is not the point of play, and while you should bear it in mind, the real objective sometimes requires you to diverge from it. I also agree with this because the game's objectives are not necessarily the puzzle the game is presenting. Usually the puzzle or challenge to solve lives on a higher abstract meta-game, usually defined by the genre.
- aeternum 3y agoThe point of some games is not to win. The point of many is to win. Anyone that believes people play solo Overwatch for example to get to know their teammates has never played solo Overwatch. In many games, the goal is to prove oneself and win bragging rights within the social group.
- spondylosaurus 3y agoHa, Overwatch solo queue will introduce you to a whole host of teammates who you absolutely do not want to get to know better...
- AlbertCory 3y ago> For most games, the real objective is learning about each other, or about the game, or about some other real or abstract thing the game is evoking. That's certainly one way to look at it. Not everyone sees it that way.
- ChatGTP 3y agoIf you always win then it’s not a game anymore ?
- 32gbsd 3y agoI save alot of time by winning games because you get to experience the play space in the shortest possible time. I have not found a game which has a play space that is interesting enough to waste large amounts of time not winning.
- schneems 3y agoSurprised I don’t see any comments on “open” versus closed” games. A closed game is a puzzle with a definitive end and win condition. A closed game is a game of baseball. An open game is a career in baseball. In my book, How to Open Source, and this conf talk I gave https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-8UQMH6p-Mw&list=PL9oQ7yETvN13V5Xp7016XupVLg3WqiMtx&index=8&pp=iAQB https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-8UQMH6p-Mw&list=PL9oQ7yETvN13... navigating the two is a huge part of open source contribution (converting unbound seemingly impossible tasks into achievable puzzles, and reframing a setback or loss as part of a larger contribution career). I’m with the author in that when I play board games with friends my game is to keep the friendship going, to keep the games coming.
- e28eta 3y agofor a very different perspective, I like this quote, attributed to The Utopia of Rules, by David Graeber. this [is] precisely why the games are fun. In almost any other aspect of human existence, all these things are ambiguous. Think of a family quarrel, or a workspace rivalry. Who is or is not a party to it, what’s fair, when it began and when it’s over, what it even means to say you won – it’s all extremely difficult to say. The hardest thing of all is to understand the rules. In almost any situation we find ourselves in, there are rules – even in casual conversation, there are tacit rules of who can speak in what order, pacing, tone, deference, appropriate and inappropriate topics, when you can smile, what sort of humor is allowable, what you should be doing with your eyes, and a million other things besides. These rules are rarely explicit, and usually there are many conflicting ones that could, possibly, be brought to bear at any given moment. So we are always doing the difficult work of negotiating between them, and trying to predict how others will do the same. Games allow us our only real experience of the situation where all this ambiguity is swept away. Everyone knows exactly what the rules are. And not only that, people actually do follow them. And by following them, it is even possible to win! This – along with the fact that unlike in real life, one has submitted oneself to the rules completely voluntarily – is the source of pleasure. Games, then, are a kind of utopia of rules.
- omoikane 3y agoPhilosophical post about games and winning reminds me of this particular comic: https://existentialcomics.com/comic/159 https://existentialcomics.com/comic/159 Consistent with this article, watching people play games is one way to learn about their personalities, and "philosophers play X" is a recurring theme in Existential Comics to illustrate different philosophers.
- mcphage 3y agoThanks for that one, I hadn't seen it yet. The comic about Candyland is one of my favorites: https://existentialcomics.com/comic/58 https://existentialcomics.com/comic/58
- MrJohz 3y agoThe article makes some interesting points, although I suspect the main thrust that boardgame play has a complex set of in-world and out-of-world goals is not especially controversial amongst the hobby. Indeed, expand the definition of boardgames slightly to include the larger tabletop gaming scene and you find tabletop RPGs that actively make "losing" a - if not the - goal. Even in more conventional competitive boardgame territory, there are plenty of games that provide complex goals beyond just "winning"/"not losing". Games like Battlestar Galactica have you potentially switch sides during play, so you can find yourself actively working against the ludological goals you had just moments ago. Leder Games (and more specifically Cole Wehrle) have produced a few games exploring the role of the kingmaker in boardgames. Oath is particularly interesting, because the game as a whole develops with each game played, meaning that a person who has no chance of winning can still have goals beyond the current game and into the future. Historical games are also filled with complex player goals beyond the simple "win"/"lose" dichotomy. This Guilty Land sees two players competing over slavery in the US - one (Justice) trying to abolish it, and the other (Oppression) trying to maintain it. This already questions the ideas of goals in games - should I be happy if I win the game as Oppression? Yet if I don't play with the goal of winning, the game won't work. And the designer's true goal is historical discourse and argument - is democracy equipped to handle situations as deeply immoral as slavery? (This is similar to your example of Death Stranding, where you play the game to win, but also to experience the narrative created by the author.) I particularly like the example of Meltwater, which has a victory condition of annihilation of the opponent, but is designed with the expectation that the game stops being fun long before that point. This means that games typically finish via resignation, but that in turn raises the question: when should you agree to resign? How many people do you need to kill for the game to have been played? This complex, almost contradictory set of goals then becomes the thesis of the game - it's set in a world after a nuclear holocaust where the two great powers have destroyed every other landmass, and so retreat to Antarctica, the only part of the world that still has oracle potable water. And there they fight over these last resources to the death. Except the irony of the game is that, by the end of the game, the two sides will have sabotaged enough of each other's resources that there won't be enough for one side to survive. Whereas at the start of the game, with careful management, there's just enough resources for both sides to call a truce and share the territory. But if you do that, you don't play any game at all. A lot of the designers of these games have design diaries where they discuss goals and philosophies they tried to inject into the game. I also really recommend Dan Thurot's "Space-Biff Space Cast" which is a podcast which explores a lot of these ideas, usually with the designers of the games in question. Those have been great resources for challenging me to think about what games can look like, and what sorts of stories they can tell.
- langsoul-com 3y agoSorta echo's the logic of the point of the game is not the game, but rather the learning on the journey. Same with board games, winning is the pay-off but the real deal was playing the game together and having a good time
- almostdeadguy 3y agoThis is a bit too navel-gazing delve into what was more succinctly said in a quote often attributed to Reiner Knizia: “When playing a game, the goal is to win, but it is the goal that is important, not the winning.” I’d also recommend the author delve into the existing catalog of negotiation games, since the linked post in the top of this article seems to indicate that they aren’t be aware some of the brilliant games in the genre: * Cosmic Encounter - Players play one of several wildly unbalanced alien races with a special power and are forced into a series of confrontations where they must either battle or negotiate. One of the few games I’ve played where 1 to N players can win (and I’ve seen cooperative wins before). The game revolves almost entirely around negotiation (with your matched opponent, with other players at the table as potential allies, etc) * John Company - A wild simulation of running the British East India Trading company. Players hold different positions within the company providing different privileges and effectively must negotiate to better their position. Players can also work to undermine the company at the expense of those more invested in it, or can hedge against the company’s failure. * Quo Vadis? - Players are Roman politicians who must move their senators through a series of committees, to the inner sanctum, where the player with the most prestige wins. Moving through committees occurs through votes, and prestige can be obtained through voting (as an incentive provided by the game) for others or by negotiating more prestige.
- livrem 3y agoIt's a difficult balance to do "partially cooperative, partially competitive multiplayer" as the author describes their game. Almost every year there is at least one thread started on the boardgamegeek forum where someone wants to discuss "semi-cooperative" games like that, and every time it ends in a complete meltdown and thousands of posts. There are very strong opinions about it.
- RHSman2 3y agoYou should consider the magic of backgammon and how long it is has been with us. It’s all about the moment and how randomness will play out on certain, critical moments.
- herpdyderp 3y agoNone of this really resonated with me. I don’t play games to grow (or to win): I play games to have fun. Usually to have fun while playing with others as a social activity.
- rspoerri 3y agoGames which you arent supposed to or cant win are called toys. In other languages the distinction is harder. (german spiel vs. spielzeug ; spielen vs. herumspielen) Often you can play games with toys. Or you can toy in or with games. But, you arent playing the game in that moment. So theres a fundamential difference between those types of play. There might be aspects of cooperation in games, but most game design theorist[1] argue that competition (sometimes it's just against the odds) must be part of a game. There are lots of aspects why we play or toy. Winning, or typically called the challenge is only one of eight aspects. Others include sensation, fantasy, narrative, fellowship, discovery, expression and submission[2]. So if your personal reason for playing comes from winning or not, is up to you. Of course there is also the aspect of the flow, to rise with the challenge. And the types of challenges people like to be confronted with (language, mathematics, motion & perception, spatial, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic). [1]: for example : Chris Crawford, on Game Design [2]: Marc LeBlanc, Rules of Play, Game Design Fundamentials : typologies of play
- mcphage 3y ago> Games which you arent supposed to or cant win are called toys. This list includes Tetris, Pac-Man, and Minecraft, among many others. Are you sure this is a meaningful distinction?
- rspoerri 3y agoYou can win PacMan and Tetris by the high score. Minecraft is mostly a toy.
- mcphage 3y agoI don’t know about Tetris, but in Pac-Man you can play it until the game crashes. I dunno if that constitutes a win, though, especially when the vast majority of the players are unaware that it exists. I think you’d be hard-pressed to argue that it is so significant, that it changes what kind of thing Pac-Man is.
- 3y ago
- notacoward 3y agoIt's not just board games BTW. I used to play volleyball a lot. Yes, I played competitively, with strenuous drills during the week and tournaments on the weekends. But I also played pickup, and that was almost entirely social. I've gotten a bit of that with tennis too, but never played that as much. Now I'm in two pickleball groups. One is kind of competitive, but the other is a mix of "let's improve together" and pure socializing. They're both fun. So I sort of disagree with the OP. The point of a game is what the participants want it to be. Yes, it can be something other than winning, but if it is winning that's OK too.