What does winning or losing have to do with ANYTHING?

[Moraelin]

It looks like the standard fan response these days is becoming "You only whine because you can't beat the game." Or some variation thereof. And I don't even understand what does it have to do with anything. Does winning automatically make game good, or wth?

I mean, let's say I make a game. Let me give you the code in Java. It has a GUI and everything, too

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;

public class Game1 {
    private static JFrame mainFrame;

    public static void main (String args[]) {
        mainFrame = new JFrame();
        mainFrame.getContentPane().add(new JLabel("Congratulations! You won!"));
        mainFrame.pack();
        mainFrame.show();
    }
}

You don't have to be a programming genius to see that it's not even possible to lose at that "game". No matter if you even played a game before or not, or for that matter if you even saw a computer before.

Let's try version 2:

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;

public class Game2 {
    private static JFrame mainFrame;

    public static void main (String args[]) {
        mainFrame = new JFrame();
        mainFrame.getContentPane().add(new JLabel("Too bad! You lose!"));
        mainFrame.pack();
        mainFrame.show();
    }
}

This time the "game" is so hard, that noone wins. You can't even cheat to win. W00t! It must mean I have a good AI! I'm the AI programming master! NOT.

Now a third version:

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;

public class Game3 {
    private static JFrame mainFrame;

    public static void main (String args[]) {
        mainFrame = new JFrame();
        if (Math.random() > 0.5) {
            mainFrame.getContentPane().add(new JLabel("Congratulations! You won."));
        }
        else {
            mainFrame.getContentPane().add(new JLabel("Too bad! You lost."));
        }
        mainFrame.pack();
        mainFrame.show();
    }
}

This time it's perfectly balanced. There's a 50% probability to win or lose. In marketing speak you could say it provides a balanced challenge for any player.

But is any of my 3 "games" actually worth playing? Is the simple probability to win or lose enough to make a game great, in and by itself? NO. All of the 3 "games" plain old suck. They're not even really games. I can't imagine anyone who'd want to play either of them for fun.

So the moral of the story is: it's not whether you win or lose, it's the way there that matters. Whether I win or lose at Civ 3, it still doesn't mean I have to like it. Deal with it.

And the second moral of the story is: just because you lost, doesn't mean the AI is great. See my second "game" example. Does it mean I have some advanced AI in there? No. I just cheat. I make the player lose, no matter how well he plays.