Mario Bros Bowser

Ever since the days of Pitfall and Centipede on Atari’s gaming system, it has been fascinating for me to understand what is so compelling about games. What is it about games that invites us and seduces us to divorce our realities and immerse ourselves in an alternate reality and invest into what appears to be a total waste of time.

What exactly about a game that makes it so compelling? What is it about World of Warcraft that would make a kid spend 5 years playing it? To explore those ideas and more, a little background in game theory would be helpful.

There are many ingredients to a great and compelling game, you might be fascinated by the graphics or the story but that wouldn’t be the reason that will keep on bringing you back to a game. To be a successful game you need to exhibit several qualities.

A. Challenge

Every game needs to posit a challenge to its player, that would be the main reason why they are playing this game in specific. There are 3 types of challenges.