Cooperative vs. competitive games

While browsing through the internet on games, I found this great article on cooperative games. The idea is that too many games depend on aggression and competition dividing the world into winner and losers, and yet we know that with the information explosion of the last decades, collaboration and cooperation become necessary in our working and learning environment. We can argue that competition is also healthy and just as necessary as cooperation, but the question that is important for gaming design is whether playing a cooperative game is as much fun as playing a cooperative game. I ask those of you who are experienced game players to give me some insights into your experiences and reactions to playing both types of games. After reading this article, I decided to experience it for myself and purchased the game called “LOST”, which I hope turns out to be an example of a cooperative game. I will report on my experience with this game in a future comment. Here is the link to the article about cooperative games.

http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/FamilyPastimes.shtml