# "The Heart of Gaming is the Power Fantasy", and Cohabitive Games

I quite liked [@mako yass](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/mako-yass?mention=user)' [Peacewagers/Cohabitive Games so Far](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bF353RHmuzFQcsokF/peacewagers-cohabitive-games-so-far). But I found myself wanting to link to this essay by Jeff Vogel, an indie game developer and blogger. I think it says something important about the constraints of how to develop Cohabitive games.

Then I thought "actually, Jeff Vogel's post here is just a great post, I wanna make a top-level linkpost." 

Vogel is an indie-game developer I've been following since the 90s, and he's got a great blog that's focused in large part on how to be commercially successful as a game developer. You can have all kinds of beautiful artsy ideas as an game designer, but if you can't make something that makes enough money to pay your bills, well, then there's a limit to how many games you can make, how many people you can hire to help make them, etc.

I was excited by mako's vision of "cohabitive games from a perspective of improving society." i.e. helping people practice openended negotation, and giving coordination theorists an empirical sandbox. But I think succeeding at this requires games that are commercially successful. (i.e. if you've only made a niche product for a few atypical gamers, you probably haven't succeeded at the more ambitious goals in the [Peacewagers](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bF353RHmuzFQcsokF/peacewagers-cohabitive-games-so-far) post)

With that context, here's some quotes from Jeff Vogel's post:

> "Power Fantasy" is usually used as a pejorative term. The phrase often has the word "adolescent" tacked on before it for a fun bit of ad hominem.
> 
> Yet. What makes video games different from other artistic media? It is activity. Video games aren't about consuming words or sounds or images. They are about action, doing things.
> 
> In almost every game, what are you doing? You are making changes in your environment. You are giving gifts in a dating sim. Designing roadways in Sim City. Shooting bad guys in, well, just about everything else.
> 
> When you change your environment, you are exercising Power.
> 
> You are doing this inside a game, a space that does not exist. Every video game takes place in a mental construct that is imagined. In other words, all video games take place in Fantasy. (In the dictionary sense, not the "casting fireball at an orc" sense.) Yet, in your brain, the Power FEELS real, and that is what counts.
> 
> Video games are about using power to make changes in a fantasy space, for pleasure. They are power fantasies.
> 
> There is nothing shameful about this. The only error is denying it. This will make you not understand video games.

...

> **The Main Takeaway, To Save You Reading**
> 
> When players end a session with your game, aim for one of two things:
> 
> *1\. They feel better about themselves.*
> 
> or
> 
> *2\. They feel that, with effort, they will feel even better about themselves. The delay of gratification should make the feeling stronger.*
> 
> If your game isn't offering either sensation, beware. You are in the [Danger Zone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siwpn14IE7E).

...

> Players are very clear about what they want. Look at the list of the [most popular games](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-played_video_games_by_player_count).
> 
> Most games are about two things. One is overcoming: Defeating puzzles, challenges, other people. The other is building: Creating and reshaping an environment.
> 
> This is what people want. It is what they expect. When you sell them a game, in their mind, that is the bargain: Customers give you time, attention, and money. In return, you give them a feeling of power, of success.

...

> **What Is Power? How Is It Expressed?**
> 
> Power is a vague word, deliberately so. I claim video games are so popular because they let their users feel intermittently powerful. There are, however, many, many routes to this goal.
> 
> The purest expression of raw power in video games is a dating sim. Dating sims give you the ultimate power: The ability to choose who loves you. Not even the Genie in Aladdin [could do that](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OczOUJw1Z7k)!
> 
> Sim City is a double fantasy. First, that we live in a world that works under rational rules that we can comprehend. Second, that we can affect that world.
> 
> Fishing in video games lets you have the power to make fishing interesting.
> 
> Horror games give you the power to survive, no matter how horrible your surroundings are.
> 
> All the most popular games are PVP. When you beat another player in a game, you have affected that human being's emotions in REAL LIFE. That's so good a Power Fantasy that it's hardly even fantasy anymore.
> 
> Idle and clicker games let you gain and use power without even the indignity of actually doing anything. They are the best example of how compelling and seductive video games are: They let you feel satisfaction and accomplishment even when you aren't doing anything at all.
> 
> Puzzle games create a very simple, abstract world in which you can be smart, competent, and have mastery. If you dispute the power fantasy element of this, I merely observe this: When you solve a difficult puzzle correctly, you feel powerful.

I think there are a lot of cohabitive games that are focused on building (i.e Minecraft is one of the most popular games of all time). The thing that feels missing to me here is... gamey-ness. I think people have "criticized" Minecraft for being unclear what the point is, and being more of a toy or sandbox than a "game." 

One of the things I'm particularly interested here is games that specifically reward your choices of how to prioritize negotiation, conflict, and building, and that give you something of a measureable outcome you can improve on. Minecraft has a very vague version of this, determined entirely by what you / other-players think is cool.

An issue is that I think the power-fantasy of conflict is very satisfying/primal. For any game that includes it as an option, players will tend to gravitate towards it and it'll dominate. (not quite the right anecdote, but a story comes to mind from [Raph Koster](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uicb62iovv6HC5g7E/raph-koster-on-virtual-worlds-vs-games-notes) has a story where they put loads of effort into an intricate ecosystem in Ultimate Online, and players didn't even notice because they just ran around killing everything)

I think the killer app for a really successful cohabitive game will be to somehow give players a power fantasy that is *more* compelling than pure competition, while having competition be a big enough theme of the game for it to be relevant to negotiation.