Dimensional conflict: diversion vs. expression

While I mentioned in Three-dimensional games that games with the greatest magnitude in all three dimensions will be considered the best, this isn't to say that dimensions won't occasionally come into conflict with each other.  In other words, it is possible that attempting to increase the magnitude along one axis will decrease the magnitude along another axis.

I want to focus on a specific conflict that can arise when trying to maximize the magnitude along every dimension: the conflict between the demand of diversion to fill time and the demand of expression to reduce the time filled.

Grokking in three dimensions

Even if you accept that the notion of grokking and grok-tests play an important role in understanding games, you may doubt that winning is an indication of grokking in light of games such as foot races and lotteries where grokking the rules is clearly not the sole requirement for victory.

Three-dimensional games, part 4

Over the past few posts, I've briefly described how you can view games in terms of their relationship to three dimensions: diversion, sport, and expression.  The previous two parts explained how to get a visual representation of the dimensions and how to deal with some of the shortcomings this model has in it.

In this part, I will add the third and final dimension onto the dimension map.  This dimension is expression, and it is the one that I care most deeply about when it comes to video games (and pretty much most things, coincidentally).  Most game-makers, game-players, and non-game-players do not think of games in terms of expression, so in the last couple posts, we were free to exclude it as I introduced this dimensional view of games.  But now we finally get to add it in our visualization, which is important, because it will reveal a hidden side to games and explain why I disagree with so many of my friends when we are talking about games.

Three-dimensional games, part 3

In the last part of "Three-dimensional games," I showed you how it is possible for players to look at games from different dimensions and that we must establish which dimension or dimensions we are talking about as we share our opinions.  Ideally, we should look at both dimensions--diversion and sport. 

However, looking at both dimensions still does not guarantee an argument-free conversation about a game.  The reason is that people can perceive either of these dimensions differently than someone else perceiving the same dimension.  Keep in mind that we took all diversions and all sport and collapsed them into two simple straight lines.  A straight line does not do either of them justice.

Three-dimensional games, part 2

So now that we have our definitions, we can start figuring out how to express these dimensions.  We'll start with the two that most of us agree on--diversion and sport--and leave the third dimension for a later part.

Three-dimensional games, part 1

Games can be perceived in three dimensions: diversion, expression, and sport.  Of the three, diversion and sport are the most readily identifiable with games.  Expression is the more controversial dimension, and of course that is the dimension I am most interested in.

For now, though, I'm content to keep expanding the theoretical vocabulary we can use when talking about video games.  To that end, I want to share this three-dimensional view with you so that we can have another short-hand method to communicate more efficiently and effectively when we share our opinions.