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Introducing Uncertainty
Imagine how incomplete you would feel if, before the game, you were already declared the winner. Imagine how purposeless the game would feel.—Bernard DeKoven, The Well-Played Game
Uncertainty is a central feature of every game. That's right: every single game. As game designer and philosopher Bernard DeKoven points out, uncertainty about the outcome of a game is a necessary ingredient in giving a game a feeling of purpose. Uncertainty, in other words, is a key component of meaningful play. In this chapter, we explore games as Systems of Uncertainty. Games express uncertainty on two levels: on a macro-level relating to the overall outcome of a game, and on a micro-level relating to specific operations of chance within the designed system. Although all games possess uncertainty on a macro-level, not all games formally possess elements of uncertainty on a micro-level. As we will see, a player's experience of uncertainty is not always congruent with the actual amount of mathematical chance in a game. Exploring these relationships, linking macro-and micro-uncertainty to each other, and understanding how both of them impact the design of meaningful play, is our primary focus in this schema. Does every game really possess uncertainty? The word uncertainty brings to mind ideas of chance and randomness. But a game does not have to have a die roll or random algorithm to contain an element of uncertainty. If you are playing a multi-player session of Halo against players of roughly equivalent ability, the outcome of the game is uncertain, even though the game is a game of skill, not chance. When we say that uncertainty is a central feature of every game, we are echoing DeKoven in the quote above: it is crucial in a game that players don't know exactly how it will play out. Think about it: if you knew who was going to win a game before it started, would you even bother to play? There is a reason why televised sports are almost always aired live: robbed of the drama of uncertain outcome, they fail to hold our interest. One way to understand why games need uncertainty is that if the outcome of a game is predetermined, the experience cannot provide meaningful play. If a game has no uncertainty—if the outcome of the game is completely predetermined—then any choices a player makes are meaningless, because they do not impact the way that the game plays out. Meaningful play arises from meaningful choices. If a player's choices have no meaning in the game, there really is no reason to play. There is an intrinsic connection between uncertainty and meaningful play. Uncertainty is usually thought of as something that disempowers players by removing a sense of choice and agency, yet paradoxically, it is the uncertain outcome of a game that allows players to feel like their decisions have an impact on the game. Meaningful play, as we know, emerges from these kinds of decision-outcome relationships. Throughout a game system, this larger notion of an uncertain outcome is linked to the micro-level of uncertainty within a game. The specific mechanisms of uncertainty that incorporate randomness and chance, whether through the spin of a Roulette wheel or the generation of a random number in a game program, are just as important as the larger feeling of uncertainty linked to a game's outcome. From the interaction between these two levels, the meaningful play of uncertainty arises.
