Beyond Collaboration and Competition

Many serious games simulate critical issues, such as social justice, ecological sustainability, and economic inequity using collaborative and competitive rules. However, in real life, these situations often are not purely collaborative or competitive. Rather, they may involve many actors who have individual goals but must share social systems and common resources. This research demonstrates how independent goals in games support the emergence of cooperative, collaborative, and competitive interactions characteristic of these real life situations. Computer simulations and human playtests of The Farmers, an original tabletop game with independent goals, are compared to collaborative and competitive variants. These comparisons indicate that independent goals lead to play styles distinct from collaborative and competitive variants.