A video game is a structured type of interactive play, normally undertaken for fun or entertainment, and occasionally used as a teaching tool. Games are very different from work, which are usually performed for monetary reward, and from literature, that are more often a literary expression of social or aesthetic themes. However, the common thread tying all types of games together is that the participant is engaged in a process of interactive engagement with the media. This is different from other forms of entertainment, such as television, where the interaction is purely passive. Video games require active participation in order to be enjoyed.
If we look at the history of computer games, we can see that, during the main article of their development, the designers and producers of the game had little to do with the creative processes that the end user experiences. The main article of the game was the programming code that produced the output, with very little concern for what the end user wanted to achieve or to experience. In fact, many video games that have been released over the past fifteen years have been completely re-done from scratch, with absolutely no input by the designers and producers. This means that, at the end of the day, it is the video game that determines how successful and well received it will be – and it is this single element that determines the ultimate success of the video game.
The other important factor that effects the success or failure of a video game is the design and the mechanics of the game – and the granic system that is used to keep track of these two aspects. There are many different mathematical algorithms that a video game’s designer has to use, to ensure that the output of the game can be produced reliably. The granic system is used to ‘seed’ the games with random numbers, in order to ‘give’ the player a good starting hand. However, if these numbers do not fall into the right slot, the randomness of the seeds will determine whether the player will have an advantage or disadvantage. If granulating is used incorrectly, then the results of the game could result in something that does not have any kind of realistic feeling, such as the user getting stuck on the slippery slope.