Games and Rules

Introduction

Games are understood as control systems providing physical rules, artificial laws and (in-game) rules. These features are framing the game. Gamers interact willingly with given rules and therefore receive rewards or punishment. So, basically, playing games means to obey rules. Each game is a construct embedded in its own structure due to “execution, acceptance of the rules and (if digital) processing on a computer”. This whole process becomes the actual game, because the player is attached to its Magic Circle. Mentioned circle is a symbolical space (or a world) of play, which obeys to different rules compared to the real world. In this space players interact with other players, NPCs Non-Player Character and mobile and immobile objects. In order to provide those interactions rules are needed. Game Mechanics are structures of sets of rules. ^[1]

Main Part

What are Game Mechanics?

Game mechanics are actions which you let your avatar do, like swim, run, jump, collect, ride, drive or shoot. These mechanics can be found in any game. A game provides a set of actions that the players can interact with. Depending on the game mentioned set is limited to a greater or lesser extent. Such sets are like spaces. This can be a single room due to search hidden objects, a whole castle with rooms, dorms and yards to explore or even an extended fictious world that is limited by a map. Interacting with the mechanics of a game helps to understand its physics, restraints and dominant social behavior. ^[2]

Imagine a horse-riding simulation: the horse jumps higher and further due to its level. Therefore, the player must buy a horse that matches with his or her level in order to achieve the best results during a horse race. But the player is just able to pay a high price for a good horse if he or she works for stable points (in-game currency). This occurrence shows the social behavior within the game by requesting work in order to get paid. On the one hand this conveys an ethical message, on the other hand it shows the capitalist principle of our society. The world of The Sims 4 is also dominated by the capitalist system in which the players can choose career paths for their avatars. Not only to earn the avatars’ keep but to fulfill their life wish, too (but the life wish is not exclusively connected with careers). According to Beat Suter a Magical Circle must be established, which sets the frame for a game and its mechanics. Parameters must be set in order to create a world of its own to function as a game. Therefore, rules for objects and characters must be created as well as rules for their behaviors and relationships (In ‘The Sims’ a Sim cannot dispose a used plate in a bin. The latter must be put in a dishwasher or do the dishes manually, for example. A Sim cannot have a polyamorous relationship without expecting trouble on the part of his partner plus holding a disreputable status (like disloyal) within the Sims-world). A Game world can be perceived as object-oriented. ^[3]

Motivating Systems of Rules

Games have motivational characteristics, which game designers eagerly add within the magic circle of mechanics. The structure of those characteristics underlies the principle of punishment and reward. The basic rule for game designers is to challenge the player. For this to happen designers ought to provide the player with tasks, missions and problems to be solved. Such requests achieve motivation because of positive or negative feedback given to the player. The nature of rules and feedbacks vary from game to game. This means how explicitly phrased and demanded requests are. So, the player accepts the rules and due to this interaction, the player is enclosed to the Magic Circle. Suter mentions that it is possible to shift rules within the Magic Circle (from a game) in the real world. For instance, in an augmented or alternate reality game players interact with regulatory structures of a city and must conform themselves to them. In conclusion it is possible to add a new set of rules to an already existing (real) set. This means the Magic Circle is permeable. Both, on the first look contrasting parts, connect and it makes the new (artificial) rules compatible to the rules from the real world. These compatible rules are in force as long as the game runs. It is also the case that rules of the real-world influence rules in a game. So, the game can be censored by oppressive governmental interests. In this perspective the Magic Circle cannot be a law-free zone. On the one hand the Circle underlies the control and the supervision of the real world, on the other hand the latter express how to access a game. Although the Magic Circle-world and the real world affect each other the latter does not interfere directly with the rules of the Magic Circle after all. The real world rather frames and regulates the other. Live Action Roleplaying (LARP) behaves in comparison to other ‘genres’ quite freer in conjunction to the former mentioned permeable characteristic of the Magic Circle and again to its relation the real world. Firstly, the player is not only physically present in the shape of a game character. The player is also free to interpret this role. Consequently, personal life-experience and individual rules influence the game character. Killing another game character resembles like a theater play, so the action of killing must be simulated like ‘performed’ and not just carried out because the real player is physically not hurt. His body obeys to the rules of the real world. That’s why killing is colored theatrically. Although rules for killing within the Magic Circle do not coincide with them in the real-world game-rules can be set differently depending on the game. Concluding LARP games are highly suffused with real world rules. ^[4]

Micro and Macro Mechanics

Meaningful Play (Salen, Katie/Zimmerman, Eric, 2004)

With reference to John Huizinga and his crucial thoughts on how the aspect of play affected and, of course, still affects human civilization, Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman raise the question of how „meaning“ can be understood in relation to „play“. Because as Huizinga puts it, „all play means something“, therefore the authors examine what „meaning“ and „play“ are all about when attached to the discourse of computer games or, more precisely, computer game design.^[5] In the course of their argumentation, Salen and Zimmerman first offer two kinds of „meaningful play“, which are later more deeply characterized through the terms „discernable“ and „integrated“.

Meaning and Play

The term „meaningful play“ is introduced as a desirable „goal of successful game design“ and is meant to be an „concept which can address all of the „unanswerable“ questions raised by Huizinga“.^[6] Futhermore, „it is also a concept that raises questions of its own, challenging assumptions we (the authors) might have about the role of design in shaping play.“^[7]

The difficulty in defining the term especially lies in having a „near-infinite variety of forms the play can take“.^[8] Here the authors are not only focusing on video games but include several other forms of games (e.g. chess, basketball, online role-playing etc.). But what they all have in common is that „meaningful play emerges from the interaction between players and the system of the game, as well as from the context in which the game is played.“^[9] So in order to generate „meaning“ while playing, the players have to make choices, causing a specific „outcome“ to the action they have taken.

Two Kinds of Meaningful Play

In order to give a valid definition of what „meaningful play“ means in the context of computer games, the authors decide to offer two slightly different, even though closely related approaches to what factors in game design can generate meaningful play. First, Salen and Zimmerman focus on the way a specific outcome to an action taken by the players is generated by the game:

„Meaningful play in a game emerges from the relationship between player action and system outcome; it is the process by which a player takes action within the designed system of a game and the system responds to the action. The meaning of an action in a game resides in the relationship between action and outcome“

This understanding of meaningful play is displayed as „descriptive“, but still this term has to be specified, because it‘s primarily „refers to the way all games generate meaning through play“. Therefore, a second term is introduced by the authors in order to „help to be more selective in deteremining when meaningful play occurs“: This other sense of meaningful play is described as „evaluative“ and does not aiming on how games operate, it more focuses on how the relationship between actions and outcomes can be evaluated critically.

In order to take a closer look at this relation between action and outcome, the authors introduce another two terms which shall be examined more closely in the following.

„Discernable“ & „Integrated“

The terms „discernable“ are „integrated“ are mentioned by Salen and Zimerman in order to specify two, as they emphasize, absolutely necessary aspects in order to create meaningful play. As their book, „Rules of Play“ in general, these two terms mostly refer to the specific game design and how meaningful play is generated by making it „discernable“ and „integrated“

A „discernability“ of an outcome resulting from a certain action is an important factor that does not only apply to digital games, but to games in general. As the authors describe, no meaningful play can be generated without making the outcomes of the player’s actions „visible“ and perceivable to them. Therefore a game has not only to be able to „respond“, it also must do it in a way the players can recognize in order to validate the actions they just took.

The „integration“ does not only focus on how an outcome to an action is presented to the players in a perceivable way, it rather describes how a consequence is implemented into the larger context of a game. Because even if a result of an action taken by the players is not perceivable immediately, this does not mean the effect of a generated input can’t be articulated in a perceivable way and therefore have an impact on the game at a later stage.