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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Irlo" data-source="post: 8602852" data-attributes="member: 7028372">Makes sense. I certainly meant what I said:Looking at design intentions and implementation is important. And it's not everything. Games are played by groups of people, and I think the experience of those people is as important as a game designer's intentions. I haven't seen vehement opposition to analysis, but I haven't looked for it. I'll take your word for it. Groups of gamers don't have a unified or consistent desired game experience.  Game #1 might work very well to provide Experience A, and Game #2 might work very well to provide Experience B, while Game #3 works moderately well with some patches to provide both Experiences A & B at the same time to the same group. So one might say that #3  doesn't work as well or that it doesn't suit the players, when it actually does suit the group. I suppose that we have to consider that the designer's intention might be to provide an adequate balance of experiences to appeal to a wider-range of players and thus better facilitate group play, and that we determine if a game works by finding if that intention is met. But I don't think you'll find that answer in an analysis of game technology in the absence of an analysis of group dynamics and play.Thanks for your thoughtful response.</blockquote>