Writing - Blog - Why games can have lots and be uninteresting (opens in new tab)

Firstly, lets get an idea for what it means to be an interesting game. Games have a toolkit of Skinner boxes which are environments of semi-random, semi-predictable stimulus that punish and reward the rats in the box. It's this stimulus and semi-random reward which is the only meaningful difference between a slot machine and a box with a lever. If you remove this, you make the "game"... playing a box with a lever, fundamentally uninteresting.