Removing the goal makes the player the author of what the game is about

The argument

A second argument offered for this position concerns what the game does not do. Proponents point out that it sets no objective. There is no score, no sequence of levels to clear, and nothing the game treats as having finished it. A player who stops has not failed to complete anything, because nothing was set. Proponents argue that this absence is not a gap in the design but the thing the design is built around, since it forces the player to supply the purpose themselves. The argument is that purposes supplied this way behave differently from purposes handed over. A task the game sets can be done, and once done it is spent; the player is returned to the game for the next one. A project the player sets has no completion condition except their own satisfaction, which means it can be extended, revised and abandoned without the game having an opinion. Proponents argue this is why players describe long running efforts measured in months rather than sessions, and why they talk about what they are building rather than how far they have got. Holders of the view connect this to the kind of satisfaction involved. Finishing a task someone else set produces the pleasure of having met a standard. Making something nobody asked for produces the pleasure of authorship, which proponents argue is both less immediate and far more durable, since it does not run out when the content does. They add that it explains the unusual breadth of the audience: a game that announces what it is about selects the players who want that, while a game that leaves the question open is joined by anyone who can think of an answer.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Opponents argue that the game does set goals, and that the account overlooks them. Its survival mode supplies hunger, threat, a progression through better tools and materials, and an end point most players recognise as the end of the game, which is a fairly conventional structure wearing an unconventional surface. They also contend that open ended design is better described as a filter than a broadener, since players who cannot think of a project frequently stop quickly, and that the ones who stay are a self selected group whose enthusiasm is then taken as evidence about everybody. Others add that much of what players build is copied from instructions rather than authored.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The survival mode supplies hunger, threat, a progression through better tools and an end point most players treat as the end of the game, so objectives are set after all. [Rejecting P3] Much of what players build is copied from instructions produced by others, which is closer to meeting a standard than to authorship. [Rejecting C] Open ended design acts as a filter rather than a broadener, since players who cannot think of a project leave quickly, so the breadth of the remaining audience is self selected.