Gameplay and Game Mechanics: A Key to Quality in Videogames

What makes a good game? Marketing wisdom indicates that the success or failure of a product depends mainly on how well it satisfies customers’ preferences, needs and expectations. Consequently, knowing the player and his/her preferences is crucial to design successful digital games. Hence, the really important question is: what do players expect from a good game? When playing a game, players seek challenge, mastery and reward, all packed in entailing and motivating activities. From this stems the importance of gameplay as a crucial game design cornerstone, and game mechanics as tools that the player has to interact with in order to carry out gameplay activities. In this paper we analyze the relevance of gameplay and game mechanics from a player-centered perspective, and provide insights and guidelines to improve game design in order to sustain and enhance players’ motivation through gameplay.