Video Games = Art

Gaming Panaceas



I remember when I was a kid, I wanted to learn all the cool chess tricks so that I could do an easy sneak attack win on my opponent.  It worked against my brother, and for a while it worked on my dad.  But there was a lesson to be learned: the best games are balanced so that for every trick, there is a defense.  So once the defense is learned, the trick doesn’t work anymore.

The games that survive are the game that require a genuine degree of contingency regarding the winner of the game.  So don’t expect for there to be a panacea for any game.  Sure, there are strategies that can give you a slight advantage and increase your chances of winning, but so many beginners hope for that one holy grail – the secret piece of knowledge – that will always give them the edge.  Just like the holygrail, you better plan to spend the rest of your life looking.

Over at BlackJackMoments, there’s a post on how card counting strategies don’t guarantee a win.  Sure they can give you a slight edge, but the emphasis should be on slight.  Luck and chance still prevail in that game.

The point of this post is just that the beauty of gaming is that you don’t know whose going to win…the winner is not built into the rules.  Depending on the game, the winner either depends primarily on the skills that he’s learned through years of training, or on the hands of fate.  In either case, the rules themsleves are designed as a neutral conduit on which the game can play out with a preprescribed winner.  No game worth its salt will allow a guaranteed way to win each game.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon

Tags: No Tags

Linebreak Linebreak

Now THIS is great gaming news! What do I do now?


1. Subsribe to Gaming Moments!

2. Submit this to Reddit

3. Bookmark this post on del.icio.us

Linebreak

Comments

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent Articles

GM Network News

Lottery Books