Practical Game Design

Games as systems of conflict

According to a formal definition given by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman in their famous book Rules of Play, a game is "a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome."

It's an interesting definition, perfect for deeply understanding game mechanics. It is easy to think about conflict in terms of war and triumph through competition, and this is indeed one of the reasons why games that represent fights and battles are so popular. But by conflict here, we really mean any kind of problem that is artificially created by the game designer for the player to solve. So why are these conflicts so important for the players and how can we create conflicts ...