So I mentioned that I'm planning to write a book about game design, and here is a general concept I have of why people play games.

I want to look at psychological forces that bring players to games.

James Paul Gee is good for further reading

Game as Exploration

Games are learning machines, first and foremost, for those who view games as exploration. The fundamental notion here is that some players appreciate novelty.

These players favor wide content (e.g. sandbox games) or deep mastery (e.g. complex rules mechanics in RPGs) so that they can have new experiences. Competitiveness may factor in here, but not always: if deep mastery is required to see all content (climbing mountains, for instance), this sort of player may attempt it, but only if it serves novelty.

Game as Challenge

Another group of players has a tangentially related motivation, but it is divergent in goal. Those who pursue a game as an exercise in exploration do so in a way that aims at learning as an end.

Game as Challenge reflects a different motive: victory. Learning will be a part of the process, at least barring prodigious talent, but it is secondary to competition.

This can take social forms in multiplayer games but also in challenges and speedruns, in which players compete for speed. Optimization also falls into this category, assuming it is optimization for performance and not amusement (that is, not as a joke, which fits the exploratory mold better since that is a jest rather than a serious attempt to win).

Game as Identity

The identity based gamer seeks an experience. They enjoy deep stories, told in the company of others or not, and strong characters.

They also enjoy choice for the sake of choice. This limits barriers between the avatar and player.

This is also where setting and theme become important. Strong stories can be dynamically emergent (e.g. trade simulators like Elite, settlement simulators like Dwarf Fortress, strategic games like Mount and Blade) or scripted, but the player defines goals in the virtual world rather than in artifical terms.

Game as Ritual

Another group of players is the ritual player.

We often negatively associate this type of gamer with addiction or tagging along, but designers can form positive and exploitation free relationships with these gamers.

Ritual gamers use games to fill time or as a part of their social life. The game itself is unimportant, except as a vehicle to these purposes.

While often derided as casual players, these players are willing to commit so long as the game makes no unbecoming demands of them. They enjoy games that offer fringe benefits in the form of socialization or fitting into schedules, but still are selective. This is the sort of player that loves solitaire

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