Preference for competitive or cooperative games?

by Hawke Robinson — published Jun 20, 2015 05:05 PM, last modified Feb 05, 2023 12:22 PM

A question that came up from others elsewhere (social network poll): "How do you rather play games? Cooperatively, no preference, competitively?"

Preference for competitive or cooperative games?

Non-zero-sum games

Totally depends on the goals and audience. I have wrriten a fair amount on this topic previously, including for some specific populations (see References section).

With some populations some competitive games can be devastating to their self-confidence if they lose (ASD and others), while others, with proper guided processing, can get some real benefits win or lose (often most benefit from losing and then helping them process what they can learn).

Personally I prefer cooperative games because of the amazing things breaking out of so many rigid thought patterns that can be accomplished, when switching from zero-sum thinking to non-zero-sum.