CONFLICT
Conflict at the Heart of the Game
Imagine a game of musical chairs. A group of children is moving around a circle of chairs while music plays in the background. The music stops, and each participant tries to secure a chair as quickly as possible, using speed and agility to beat other players. In the end, one player is left without a chair, and consequently removed from the game. One chair is taken away so as to keep the number of chairs below the number of players, and the game continues. Now imagine the same scenario as before but with exactly as many chairs as there are participants. When the music plays, everyone paces leisurely, certain of having a chair to sit down on. And when the music stops, everyone simply sits down without having to compete for a seat for themselves. Unlike in the first version of the game, however, there is little sense in continuing this one past the initial round. Taking away the conflict embedded in the game essentially makes it a meaningless and, most importantly, boring activity.
Conflict, at least in an open and relatively abstract sense, lies at the heart of games. Conflict is something that turns a simple challenge, such as being able to jump over a high fence, into something much more engaging. In his book on game design, Chris Crawford (2003) illustrates how conflicts between active agents are what set games apart from many other forms of creative expression. In addition to Crawford, several other prominent game scholars and designers have demonstrated the centrality of conflict (or sometimes contest) to the idea of games (e.g. Salen & Zimmerman, 2004; Avedon & Sutton-Smith, 1971).
This essay uses a four-way schema to frame and understand conflict in games. In his book An Introduction to Game Studies (2008), Frans Mäyrä considers challenge and conflict as one of the key dynamics important to understand when analyzing games. He separates two main viewpoints into conflict, the conflict between the player and the game and the conflict between players (Mäyrä, 2008, p. 20). These viewpoints form the basic structure of this essay. They are further divided into two variants, intentional and unintentional conflicts. Following this structure, I will first look at conflicts between the gamer and the game. These include intentional conflicts designed into the game, as well as instances where the needs and motivations of the gamer are in juxtaposition to the game, causing an unexpected, and often unwanted, conflict. Second, I will look at conflicts between players. Again, I will approach the topic both from the viewpoint of conflicts that are designed to occur and conflicts that arise naturally, as a part of social interaction between players.
Not all approaches to conflict could be included here. For example, I will not look at the potential conflicts between various interest groups surrounding gaming, such as developers/publishers vs. player communities (such as can be the case with certain types of modding), or the kinds of conflicts that take place within the broad realm of gaming, but outside of the actual game experience (such as platform wars fought among supporters of different gaming consoles). I will also not deal with decision theory, or conflict as seen from the point-of-view of traditional game theory (i.e. in applied mathematics and economics). These, and other viewpoints, remind us of the usefulness of conflict as a lens through which games and gaming culture can be observed and understood.
Conflict between the Gamer and the Game
Some games or game-like activities can succeed while relying on an interesting challenge alone. In practice however, designing artificial conflicts is usually central to game design. As Crawford (2003) puts it, “conflict enlivens and animates challenge; without conflict, challenge is limp and passive” (p. 55). The distinction between a challenge and a conflict is not always easy to make. For Crawford, it is the presence of purposeful opponents that characterizes conflicts.
There are several ways of designing conflicts between the gamer and the game. Some contexts, such as war and sports have become staple imagery of video games. On a concrete level, player-versus-game conflicts can manifest as a struggle with enemy nonplayer characters, the environment of the game, or other factors. The key dynamic is often that of restricting or opposing the actions of the player. From a design viewpoint it is important to remember that conflicts are defined by rules, and that playing by these rules should allow the player to reach a meaningful (and often quantifiable) outcome or result (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004, p. 80).
What is it about conflict that motivates players? One way of answering this question is to see solving conflicts as answering a very basic need in players. Players entering a game want to understand it, and ultimately, to be able to control it. In many cases, the final goal of players is to solve the conflict, or somehow find a balance to an unbalanced situation. This need for balancing the conflict can be understood through the universal drive for reaching closure. Much like we automatically fill in the blanks in an incomplete picture to make it whole in our heads, there is a basic need for orderliness and control in us that can be a powerful source of motivation when used properly. From this viewpoint, the lack of order, or apparent meaning, can be seen as a source of conflict or tension between the game and the player, driving the player to mend the broken picture of the puzzle, or to find a way to balance the infrastructure of an imaginary city on the verge of chaos.
Following this line of thought, a game should afford the player a level of meaningful interaction within its system. This is what makes a game playable. However, it is the level or grade of this interactivity that has an influence on whether a game is not only playable, but also enjoyable. On the one hand, if a game is too difficult to understand or impossible to control, the inner conflict or tension may remain unsolvable. On the other hand, should the game be too simple to master, no meaningful level of conflict or tension may appear. Here we step into the realm of player experience, a subjective and highly varied phenomenon.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow (1990) has been widely adopted by game studies scholars. While the concept was not originally developed for this purpose, and is easy to misunderstand and misuse, the idea of a dynamic relationship between an individual’s skills or competence and the challenge presented to him or her can be a useful tool when trying to understand games and their players. When is a conflict too hard? At what point is the need to balance a conflict overcome with boredom if the players’ actions do not yield meaningful results? Finding a way to balance a player’s skills and a game’s challenges in a way that keeps the player from becoming frustrated or losing interest is one of the most important tasks in designing viable artificial conflicts in games.
Unintended Conflict between the Player and the Game
Looking at unintentional and emergent conflicts requires a decidedly open definition of the phenomenon. Here, conflict is not seen only as a direct contest or combat between actors, but rather as something more indirect and subtle, along the lines of disagreement, discord, or interference.
A basic type of unintended conflict between player and game can be caused by a mismatch between expectations and reality. It is not hard to imagine a situation where the player wants easy-going entertainment, but is aggravated by a game being too hard or harsh. This, at its heart, is a conflict of interest. One can approach this phenomenon from the point-of-view that play should be safe and emphasize having fun (e.g. Crawford, 2003, pp. 31–32). Yet this is a necessarily limited viewpoint. It is also possible to question the centrality of fun and see that the conflict or tension itself can be of value at times. A game might offer such a frustrating experience that the player reacts physically, throwing the controller to the wall—only to return to the game the next day, determined to overcome the challenge.
Incoherencies and unfulfilled expectations may also cause unintended tension between the gamer and the game (Poole, 2000). A player may be in control of a superhuman character with incredible agility and strength, but still be unable to climb over a cunningly placed dumpster in an alley that marks the end of mapped territory in an otherwise open-ended environment.
There is also significant conflict potential in unexpected player behavior. In their review of cultural studies approaches to digital games, Garry Crawford and Jason Rutter (2006) present several views into how individuals can be seen as truly independent, creative actors capable of “oppositional” readings of games. Players can and will break the rules of games, disrupting the system they are embedded in, and causing conflicts to emerge (between themselves and the game as well as other players) that were not intended by the design of the original game. From cheating to “griefing,” this kind of transgressive behavior can be very interesting to study. This is what Salen and Zimmerman (2004, pp. 558–559) refer to as resistance or friction, which can be seen as a form of conflict between the player and the game.
Using words such as friction, resistance, opposition, and disruption when describing unexpected player behavior carry relatively negative connotations. However, as David Myers argues in his essay on defining a minimalist game model, drawing a strong distinction between “good” or “right” kind of play and abusive strategies (the so-called cheater or spoil-sport viewpoint) is not necessary. According to him, since a game must place the players in an oppositional relationship with itself and its rules, it is only the degree of this relationship that changes. In essence, opposition, or contest or competition, is necessary for games to be considered games (Myers, 2009). From this viewpoint, the unexpected conflicts should actually be expected and embraced, proof of the vitality of games and their players.
Intentionally Designed Player-Versus-Player Conflict
Conflict between players can take many forms, from two single players confronting each other, to groups or communities competing, to asymmetric settings. A game can naturally also entail more than one type of conflict.
Video games often enable multiple human actors to participate. In many ways this is the simplest way of including several “active agents” (Crawford, 2003) in the gameplay. These are parties with at least partly juxtaposed interests, goals, and motives. As Crawford notes, while it is certainly possible to create a meaningful conflict between a human player and a computer, in many cases the active agents in conflict are humans. Lankoski and Heliö (2002) discuss the same phenomenon through the concept of characters. They argue that it is through well-defined characters with distinct natures and needs that one creates the basis of conflict in the first place, “their conflicting interests are the basis of action; there can be no game without conflict” (p. 315).
Looking at player-versus-player conflict in its simplest form, many games use a very basic type of competitive conflict. A traditional example of such a conflict is evident in zero-sum games. When played through, this kind of conflict can result only in the victory of one player. Most importantly, for one player to win requires the other player to lose. Of course many games include conflicts that are more subtle or indirect and include several parties and variables, but looking at their basic dynamics, it is often possible to notice the presence of such a basic positioning. This is very much like a traditional view of social conflicts, where the conflict automatically arises between the “haves” and the “have nots.”
A well-designed conflict in a game requires more than a number of active agents with conflicting interests. From the point-of-view of enjoyment, an experience of fairness is important. A fair conflict takes place on a level playing field (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004, p. 260). As hard as this might be to reach in practice, it is clear that taken too far, the feeling of unfairness will result in players leaving the game.
Another useful point-of-view is to consider that to a certain extent, conflict between players requires at least some level of cooperation. This is because most often participation in games is voluntary. For a conflict to happen, let alone happen repeatedly or over a long period of time, the participants must cooperate in creating and maintaining it. There has to be a basic willingness to play, built up and kept up via continuous negotiation (DeKoven, 1978). For example, in a game where the conflict proves to be unbalanced and therefore not enjoyable, it is likely that players will abandon the game before long. From this angle, conflict and cooperation go hand in hand, with the former being dependent on at least some amount of the latter. Salen and Zimmerman, in their reading of DeKoven’s work, call this the idea of cooperative conflict, where cooperation can be seen as something like systemic cooperation that is fundamental to all games (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004, p. 256).
As a final point, it is important to remember that while design choices definitely affect the kind of conflicts a game entails, they do not provide the whole picture. A designer may set up what Lankoski and Heliö call a “tense situation” (Lankoski & Heliö, 2002, p. 313), but it is often impossible to fully predict how players will act the situation out in reality. Salen and Zimmerman (2004, p. 254) also note how seemingly simple design choices can result in rich and multilayered conflicts, with players creating their own forms of conflict via their engagement in gameplay. This kind of emergent conflict is sometimes hard to anticipate, and leads us toward our next topic of unintentional and emergent conflicts.
Emerging Conflicts between Players
When dealing with contexts where a number of people interact and collaborate for a prolonged period of time, conflicts do not, strictly speaking, need to be designed in. They occur as a natural facet of social interaction. Studies on the social dynamics of online gaming groups and communities have illustrated that conflicts between group members are not only normal but also practically unavoidable.
One interesting factor behind emerging conflicts is the variance in motives and approaches that players have toward a game. Sometimes players’ conceptions of what the essence of the game is, or how it should be played, are in direct contradiction, causing a conflict between players. One way of understanding this is through the traditional categorization of forms of play by Roger Caillois (1961). For example, let us imagine a strategy game that includes a heavy narrative element and is partly dependent on strategic decisions, partly on chance (or is sufficiently complex that not all outcomes can be predicted accurately). Now, in a tournament or league built around this game, one can probably find players who appreciate the background story and narrative of the game (mimicry), players who enjoy the way the game swings back and forth unpredictably (alea), and players who view the competition and winning as central (agôn). Players can even differ in whether they emphasis the rules and structure (ludus), or seek more spontaneous and playful experience out of the gameplay (paidia). The interplay of these different viewpoints is not always painless, as players struggle to promote their way of playing the game as the right one.
The simultaneous existence of differing and even oppositional approaches helps to illustrate and understand the tensions between different player types (an idea introduced by Richard Bartle in 1996, and later revisited by many), as well as the discourse on “power gamers” (e.g. Taylor, 2003). Sometimes players accuse others of sacrificing the fun, while others insist that they are simply using the means that the game provides them in order to win. In addition, conflicts between and among players are exemplified in terms such as free riding and unsportsman-like behavior.
In long-term player groups and communities, participants typically engage in a process of negotiating the norms and rules that govern their play. In a way, they enhance or add to the design of the game, creating levels of meta-gaming that go beyond the original or intended game space. Often, this process leads to conflict at one point or another.
In his ethnographic study of World of Warcraft players, Mark Chen points out how players are capable of creating social dilemmas (Chen, 2012, pp. 57–58). That is, players manage to create situations where many participants have to negotiate and make choices with interrelated effects. Questions such as how to share limited resources in the game, who should decide on the course of action to be taken, and how to deal with cheating or grief play are typical for player communities. Of course, sometimes conflicts do not need such fundamental issues behind them, but can rather be tracked down to misunderstandings caused by mistypes or technical issues (Siitonen, 2009).
Sometimes conflicts among group or community members can become so fierce that they endanger the existence of the player community. The process of escalating conflict has, for example, been referred to as a “meltdown,” a situation where it is possible that people argued until “irreparable damage occurred to their friendships, effectively disbanding the raid” (Chen, 2012, p. 73). Perhaps because of this possibility looming in the background, or because of the basic orientation of being together for “fun and games,” members of player communities even actively shy away from conflicts (Siitonen, 2009). For example, having a clear set of rules regarding player behavior, and making sure that only players who comply with these rules are let into the community when recruiting new members, can be an effective strategy for managing conflicts preemptively.
Finally, not all conflicts among players are about the game they are playing. Games do not exist in a vacuum, but are rather intertwined with other aspects of human life in all possible ways. Community members falling in and out of love, clashes between different communication styles, and real-world worries and fears affecting people’s behavior are just some examples of possible causes for conflict that end up making a difference within the frame of the game.
The Interesting World of Conflict
Over the course of this essay we have seen examples of both intentional and unintentional conflicts in games. It then becomes relevant to conclude with some examples of views of conflict that can be beneficial both from a design perspective as well as from a research point-of-view.
Since conflict is central to games and gaming, there are several benefits to embracing the concept in all its variance. From a design point-of-view, it makes sense to try to provide as rich a space of possibility for conflicts as one can, in order to support a wide range of conflicts. This is what is said to make a game meaningful (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004, p. 255).
Many games successfully tap into the basic motivation that players have of establishing order over chaos, or making sense of a system that poses challenges to them. As Salen and Zimmerman note, “… formal decisions about the game’s structure directly shape the nature of conflict emerging from the game” (2004, p. 254). While design choices definitely matter, it is good to remember that one does not need to design conflicts for them to occur. Especially in complex systems with an increasing amount of active agents, the sheer range of dynamics of interaction help conflicts to emerge. Quite simply, if a system if complex enough, including a large quantity of independent variables, there is a basic pull toward entropy and chaos.
Looking carefully at the various dimensions of conflict can be useful both when designing and analyzing them. Conflicts have been categorized in many ways, for example into physical, verbal, political, and economic conflicts (Crawford, 2003, pp. 56–59). It is a useful exercise to think of different types of conflicts and how they would relate to existing categorizations. One might add emotional conflict to the previous list, even though it has been less used in video games and is definitely harder to design well than physical conflict.
Other interesting and useful ways of analyzing (and designing) conflicts include looking at how direct or indirect the conflict is, and how intensively it plays out. Regarding intensity, Crawford asserts, “a well-paced game design will rely on more indirect, less intense forms of conflict if it is to last a long time” (2003, p. 61). The intensity of conflict can even be used when analyzing games by drawing a “conflict-tension curve” where the relationship between the intensity of gameplay to time spent playing is illustrated (Friedl, 2003, p. 243).
Whether designed or unintentional, there are many interesting viewpoints to conflicts beyond the scope of this essay. One might look at the way game design can deliberately be abusive toward the player, or the way players might use games as platforms for acting out conflicts in a way that would be difficult or impossible to do outside of the game. From straightforward conflicts between the game and the player to the complicated dynamics of conflicts in meta-games of thousands of players, understanding the role of conflict has a key role in the understanding of games.
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