What makes a game engaging?
Case-in-point: FIFA 20
FIFA 20: It is a football simulation game, in which the gamer (the user) plays with the help of bots which are based on real-life footballers. The objective of the game is to outscore the opponents (maybe a human or a computer) in terms of Goals netted. The game has many levels (amateur, intermediate, pro etc.), it also has various programs (events or competition), which is accessible at different times of the calendar year. FIFA 20 (FIFA) follows the concept of both ludus and paidia. Ludus in a way that it follows the structure, rules and competitive strife, and paidia in a way that the user plays FIFA and not uses FIFA, the game is expressive, and one can use his/her innovation to outplay the opponent.
The game is engaging, after playing it on my mobile phone for 20 minutes (as suggested by our instructor), I played the game for another 20 minutes. The following attributes makes it engaging.
Interface: To engage users any mobile application needs to have a soothing and relatable interface, it should also have pleasant aesthetics, and FIFA is a masterpiece in this aspect. The bots used in the game are all based on real-life footballers, that is, the name of the bots and the face are taken from real life, even the after-goal celebration is exactly enacted in the game-play. The stadiums are presented as realistically as possible. Thus, playing FIFA gives an experience of watching the game but controlling the players.
Game-play: FIFA’s game-play is close to real-life game-play, the shots, running speed, style and tactics can be simulated and executed in the game itself. As mentioned above, FIFA follows a concept of levels, in which the user with a particular team rating is labelled as an amateur, intermediate, pro etc.. The game is designed in such a way that the competitive matches are between teams of the same level, and hence the competitiveness is intact.
Difficulty in winning: FIFA although enacting the real game very closely, it has some unpredictability and depth, unpredictability in a sense that we get opponents of different caliber (although the same rating) hence finding a sustainable hack to fulfill the objective is difficult. The depth ensures that when the users are comfortable at a particular level, they have the option to choose a different (more difficult) level, there are many levels and exploring all the levels in one season is close to impossible; hence the will to keep competing never goes away.
Events and Competition: FIFA follows the actual football calendar. It brings events and competition based on what is going on in the real world. For example, Today there was an event on the UEFA Champions League, which is about to start very soon. These events follow the exact format and structure as the real-life tournament.
Game within game: FIFA exhibits the trait of meta-game, in which the game-play itself is gamified, it has leaderboards, which shows our relative rankings, there is a reward after completing a level and graduating to the next one etc.. Although these traits couldn’t be explored in the 20 (+20) mins, there was a meter which displayed the percentage completion and this meter prompted me to play one more match hence making it engaging.
Defining “Gamification”, (Deterding et al., 2011)
All these traits has made FIFA 20 an engaging game and they comprehend the concepts and theory of gamification.