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Conflict arises naturally from the interaction in a game. The player is actively pursuing some goal. Obstacles prevent him from easily achieving this goal. Conflict is an intrinsic element of all games. It can be direct or indirect, violent or nonviolent, but it is always present in every game.—Chris Crawford, The Art of Computer Game Design
Introducing Conflict
What does it mean to consider games as Systems of Conflict? First of all, we agree with Chris Crawford. Conflict is an intrinsic element of every game. Conflict, a game as a contest of powers, is a core component of our very definition of the term "game." While conflict outside of games can sometimes be destructive, in games we find the wonderful paradox of a staged conflict, resulting in meaningful play. Game conflict emerges from the unique circumstances of a game. The magic circle imbues games with special meanings. One of the most important meanings to emerge is the game's victory conditions. Winning the game might only have value within the magic circle, yet players pursue it. By virtue of their participation in the game, they have taken on as meaningful the game's presumptions and proscriptions, including everything associated with winning. The struggle among the players to achieve the goal of a game and become winners is the competitive activity that drives a game's system of conflict. The fact that this activity is a struggle derives from the intrinsic challenge presented by the conflict of a game. As we know from our study of the lusory attitude, games are constructed so that their goals are difficult to achieve. The conflict of a game arises as the game players struggle toward achieving the goal, often in opposition to each other, sometimes struggling together or in parallel. What are the shapes of conflict that occur in games? Struggle in a game can take many forms: Many games mix and match these forms, such as a wrestling meet, in which individuals compete against each other in pairs, but their scores are added up and applied to the team as a whole. Some games can accommodate more than one of these game modes, such as the arcade game Double Dragon, in which one player can compete against the program, or two players can cooperate against it. Still others have competitive structures that change over time, such as the television show Survivor, in which players are initially divided into two competitive teams, eventually becoming a single group from which a single winner emerges.
Single player vs. single player: a Chess game or Boxing match
Group vs group: Basketball, Soccer, and other team sports
One against many: Tag or Mother May I?
Every player for themselves: a footrace or the strategic board game Risk
Single player competing against a game system: Solitaire or Tetris
Individual players competing side by side against the game: casino Blackjack
A group of players cooperating against a game: Lord of the Rings Board Game
Conflict in a game can be direct or indirect. In an arm wrestling match, players are pitted directly against each other, trying to pin the other player's arm while avoiding being pinned themselves. The back and forth movements of the players' locked hands is a direct meter of the struggle, indicating how near or how far either one of them is from achieving the winning conditions of the conflict. In a figure skating contest, the conflict is indirect. Competitors each have their own turn to perform and be judged. They cannot directly interfere with each other's success, and winning the competition means receiving the highest score from the judges.
Still other games mix direct and indirect conflict. In a real-time strategy game such as multiplayer Starcraft, players compete against each other, though they are not always directly interacting. Players have to think offensively and defensively, building their resources and defenses, anticipating the actions of other players. As a game proceeds, the solo activities of each player evolve into direct conflict, as the units controlled by the players come into contact. Further, there is more than one way to configure the conflict in Starcraft: the game lets players set · up team vs. team games, one player vs. many players, human players vs. computer opponents, and so on.
