Saturday, September 16, 2006

Cooperative vs. competitive games

While browsing through the internet on games, I found this great article on cooperative games. The idea is that too many games depend on aggression and competition dividing the world into winner and losers, and yet we know that with the information explosion of the last decades, collaboration and cooperation become necessary in our working and learning environment. We can argue that competition is also healthy and just as necessary as cooperation, but the question that is important for gaming design is whether playing a cooperative game is as much fun as playing a cooperative game. I ask those of you who are experienced game players to give me some insights into your experiences and reactions to playing both types of games. After reading this article, I decided to experience it for myself and purchased the game called “LOST”, which I hope turns out to be an example of a cooperative game. I will report on my experience with this game in a future comment. Here is the link to the article about cooperative games.

http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/FamilyPastimes.shtml

2 comments:

BJ said...

I think the cooperative aspect of gaming is one that is, as of yet, not completely realized. MMO games where players collaborate (albeit to compete more effectively) in real time, like Halo, are increasingly popular.

In games like Civilization, you can decide to befriend or befoe (is that a word?) other civilizations while you develop your own. I think games like these could also be a proving ground for some behavioral studies work as well (e.g. given the choice, will students tend to conquer or collaborate with other peoples).

edtecnelly said...

Well you do hardly ever see cooperative games, I agree there should be more of them. It would help constructive team behavior in the classroom if games used non-comp. tactics. What kind of game is lost? A computer one, rpg?