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What are your views on "Competition"?
last week i threw up a pretty root level discussion on the idea of fun and what it would mean and had plenty of responses that i subsequently mulled over for a bit. In one of my main questions, i wondered if fun was equal to challenge, and i now believe it not so much the challenge we are firstly attracted to, but more of compettion, as a root motivation to the activites and games we engage in.
We always seem to be competing, either with ourselves and our own individual needs or the more fmailliar " other". A good example of competing with myself i think would be when i explore my limits in a game, can i get all the medals in this level? Can i get the bandages in super meat boy? Can i headshot every single player in this round of counterstrike? We compete with ourselves even as we compete with others. Even Simple games like rock paper scissors have an inherent competitive aspect that we are attracted to. In a game of D&D, we compete with the other players with regards to self esteem or prestige through the characters we create.
My main problem now is, can we replace "challenge" with "competiton?". Take farmville, there is no challenge, it is a repretitive activity, preaching a slot machine mentality. The game itself is not challengeing nor does it require true skill. However, can i say that because we compete on abstract levels, such as: "who has the bigger farm?" "Who has the most money?" that we can take treat that as the challenge instead? Hence people are still motivated to play farmville, as competition is still relevant to that activity, even if challenge and skill take a backseat.
I cam across something called Maslow's Hierachy of needs, it is a pyramid of needs that human beings, in theory, go from one level to the other. The second from the top deals with achievement, respect from others, and self esteem, while the topmost deals with creation and problem solving. Competition deals with both, and its easy to see why it is a factor for an intrinsic human motivation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
What are your views on competition, is it something game designers can simply use as an excuse to exclude a need for real skill? As long as the idea or semblence of competition is there, humans in general are rather attracted to it either way, and would be motivated to engage in said activity. Of course sustaining that motivation falls in other areas like immersion, but by my reasoning you can build a pseudo game withought any need for skill and challenge at its core and still be successful, as farmville/mafia wars has shown pretty well. Of course, such a build would work better on social platforms in the first place, where sustaining said motivation would be easier and take less effort-after all, peer pressure is by itself another great motivator.
In the end, all people care for first and foremost are competition and prestige points, real or imaginary. Hats included. Do you guys think this to be true?
We always seem to be competing, either with ourselves and our own individual needs or the more fmailliar " other". A good example of competing with myself i think would be when i explore my limits in a game, can i get all the medals in this level? Can i get the bandages in super meat boy? Can i headshot every single player in this round of counterstrike? We compete with ourselves even as we compete with others. Even Simple games like rock paper scissors have an inherent competitive aspect that we are attracted to. In a game of D&D, we compete with the other players with regards to self esteem or prestige through the characters we create.
My main problem now is, can we replace "challenge" with "competiton?". Take farmville, there is no challenge, it is a repretitive activity, preaching a slot machine mentality. The game itself is not challengeing nor does it require true skill. However, can i say that because we compete on abstract levels, such as: "who has the bigger farm?" "Who has the most money?" that we can take treat that as the challenge instead? Hence people are still motivated to play farmville, as competition is still relevant to that activity, even if challenge and skill take a backseat.
I cam across something called Maslow's Hierachy of needs, it is a pyramid of needs that human beings, in theory, go from one level to the other. The second from the top deals with achievement, respect from others, and self esteem, while the topmost deals with creation and problem solving. Competition deals with both, and its easy to see why it is a factor for an intrinsic human motivation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
What are your views on competition, is it something game designers can simply use as an excuse to exclude a need for real skill? As long as the idea or semblence of competition is there, humans in general are rather attracted to it either way, and would be motivated to engage in said activity. Of course sustaining that motivation falls in other areas like immersion, but by my reasoning you can build a pseudo game withought any need for skill and challenge at its core and still be successful, as farmville/mafia wars has shown pretty well. Of course, such a build would work better on social platforms in the first place, where sustaining said motivation would be easier and take less effort-after all, peer pressure is by itself another great motivator.
In the end, all people care for first and foremost are competition and prestige points, real or imaginary. Hats included. Do you guys think this to be true?
Post edited by lifecircle on
Comments
When you use the word "competition" that broadly I think it becomes pretty meaningless. Flow is what makes competition enjoyable and flow comes from a good match of Skill and Challenge.
If you are wracked with anxiety or listless with boredom while engaging in competition then I think the utility you'll derive from it will diminish dramatically.