ple with each other at a variety of levels. The first group of games is generally acknowledged to be dull, while the second group of games is generally regarded as more interesting. What is important about the modes of interaction is not their mechanical quality but their emotional significance. PONG is insipid because I can’t express much of my personality through the medium of a bouncing ball. Bridge is better because it includes within its interaction elements of teamwork, deception, and cooperation. I can better imprint my personality traits onto a game of bridge. Thus, degree of interaction provides a useful index of “gaminess”.

CONFLICT

A third element appearing in all games is conflict. Conflict arises naturally from the interaction in a game. The player is actively pursuing some goal. Obstacles prevent him from easily achieving this goal. If the obstacles are passive or static, the challenge is a puzzle or athletic challenge. If they are active or dynamic, if they purposefully respond to the player, the challenge is a game. However, active, responsive, purposeful obstacles require an intelligent agent. If that intelligent agent actively blocks the player’s attempts to reach his goals, conflict between the player and the agent is inevitable. Thus, conflict is fundamental to all games.

Games without conflict?

Some people shrink’ from this aspect of games. A number of attempts have been made to design “nice” games cleansed of conflict. Such games emphasize cooperative efforts rather than conflict. They have not been successful commercially; this suggests that few people enjoy them.

More importantly, these games are failures because they are not games in the first place. Conflict can only be avoided by eliminating the active response to the player’s actions. Without active response, there can be no interaction. Thus, expunging conflict from a game inevitably destroys the game.

While it is impossible to eliminate conflict from a game without destroying the game, it is possible to include cooperative elements by shifting the conflict. Members of a team can cooperate with each other in the team’s conflict with another agent. This other agent could be another team, an individual human, or a computer simulated player. In all cases, the opponent must be perceivable as endowed with a persona. Without at least the illusion of purposeful reaction to the player’s actions, the game collapses.

This “blood and guts” view of conflict in games is reinforced by the social context in which they are often played. Our real world conflicts are always indirect, diffused over time, and tightly regulated. Moreover, they all too frequently lack resolution, for seldom does one achieve an outright victory in the conflicts of daily life. Local successes, yes, but the struggle continues without clear resolution. Because games are subjective representations of the real world, they focus our attention on a particular aspect of the world by accentuating that aspect. Conflict in games thus tends