The difference between a hard game and an unfair game

I feel the need today to point out the difference between what makes a game hard and what makes a game unfair. I feel this is needed as I commonly see people confuse the two. The difference is that hard games must be overcome with skill, but unfair games can only be overcome with luck. It is the difference between Dark/Demon Souls and Mario Party.

Dark/Demon Souls are the games I usually talk about when I want to talk about hard games, and they fit here as while they are certainly hard they aren’t unfair. It might seem that sometimes, there is a trap or an enemy you didn’t see and then you die for what appears no reason. As you play though you will find out where traps and enemies are, and since they aren’t randomly generated you can account for them with knowledge and don’t just have to guess at where they are. Because while a lack of knowledge may make the game appear random, as you gain an understanding of the game you can see it isn’t random at all. Everything is deliberately placed, and always in the same place.

It isn’t unfair because a player can know enough to make getting through any area possible everytime. The best player in the world won’t question whether or not they can get through an area. Compare that to Mario Party games, even if one player is much better and even wins all the minigames that is no guarantee that they will win the game. The key difference between these two examples is chance, and how much it effects the game. In poker there is a lot of chance, but that chance can be mitigated though skill and it is over a long enough period of time to normalize it (assuming you play more than 1 hand).

An unfair game will make a mockery of your plans, things happen at random for almost no discernible reason. An unfair game can’t be competitive since at the end of the day you are comparing who is luckier. That is not to say that luck plays no part of a competitive game but as two players get better the portion that lucks plays in a victory is less and less, until ultimately it is marginalized. In an unfair game no about of skill can overwhelm luck. No amount of knowledge or skill can overwhelm always landing on another player’s property in Monopoly.

This isn’t always a bad thing, and in fact is great for party games. If a game gives up on being fair it opens it up to doing whatever it wants to in the name of fun or making the game fun or exciting. When balance isn’t an issue there are many fun mechanics that can easily be added. Also, by making a game noncompetitive you can better prevent people from getting competitive over it, which encourages them to just go with the random or wacky flow which fits certain social situations better. I get this doesn’t always work and some people will be always competitive, but a larger amount of your players will be receptive to this state of mind because of the unfairness of the game.