That link you provided was quite interesting. I read the summary of that book, which basically stated that people have too many choices nowadays, which ends up overwhelming people, leading them to make worse choices, not better. I, in fact, have seen this in real life when I worked at a fast food restaurant: customers, especially new ones, would be swamped with menu choices, which often slowed them down when they got flustered. Being a game designer in training, I immediately associated this phenomenon with games, and made a mental note to not bog players down with too many choices.

Delving a bit into psychology, I came to the conclusion that choices are often based on one’s personality. Also, our choices tend to reinforce our existing views. When playing Knights of the Old Republic, for example, I would rather play a Dark Jedi if my personality is a dark and somber one, and my choices in this game will reflect my negative views. If I were more optimistic, I might ally with the Light Side instead.

But you also mentioned that games should move farther away from pure good and pure evil, and I totally agree. It’s been done to death, and the world we live in is never so black and white. Other BioWare games have done a better job of conveying opposing world views without mentioning good or evil: in Jade Empire, you can be a follower of the Open Palm, and believe that spiritual strength lies in generosity. You could also follow the way of the Closed Fist, which states that inner strength and self-reliance are the highest goals. Likewise in Mass Effect, the player can be a Paragon (essentially a by-the-book hero), or a Renegade (a butt-kicking anti-hero). No mention of good or evil, and in my opinion, the games are made all the more interesting for that than, say, in Fable 2, where good and evil are clearly defined.

If done correctly, yes, games can be more like life, and enrich the player, who may find the power to deal with problems in his or her own life. The problem with life is that all too often, the factors influencing us are unseen and beyond our control.
There’s also something to be said about too much control, which both you and James have mentioned. Just because we can know exactly what response will cause that villager to become enamored of us in Fable 2 does not necessarily increase one’s sense of self-empowerment in that game.
As you said, arbitrary punishments are to be avoided. A teacher once told me to never disempower the user. Words to live by.

I do agree with Sid Meier’s elegant description of games, as well as most of the theory regarding ‘play loops’ and the choice element of the feedback loop (Raph Koster et al), and your paraphrase is effectively correct – though the math is often called ‘intuition’ and while we await the neuropsychologists to show us how it works, clinical psychology and behavioral studies can generate some very accurate models of the average across a sample.

Choices, balanced or otherwise – are fun. Notably they’re the least fun when they’re too unbalanced (too obvious, as Mr. Portnow points out), when they’re perfectly balanced (meaningless and uninteresting), or too wide/varied (too many options – see also: http://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Choice-Why-More-Less/dp/0060005688). This also applies to real life.

I do believe that games are art (my two personal definitions of art are: “things that imitate life” and “communication”). Making games more life like should not alienate the player if done correctly. After all, what is more natural to a user than their native environment / ruleset? Everyone has more hours of experience with life than with games of any genre (gamer recluse jokes aside). The trick is not to make the game feel like it is arbitrary punishing (which life sometimes is) but rather part of the system. The other trick is to change our presentation if we are to try this. Making a game with unpredictable elements (random or otherwise – life isn’t ‘random’ if you look at chaos theory) has issues if you sell the game with features or achievements that compete one person’s game experience with anothers’ (achievements for time to finish, etc). Also I’m hugely not a fan of ‘replay value’, but that’s for another conversation.

I agree with your summary – we should not let choices become too transparent or too empty and make sure to study all the possible goals in the equation beyond those in our original design. We should not pursue the concept of ‘choice’ as a bulleted feature for the back of the box (“multiple endings allow you to play it over and over, different every time!”) all too eager to add it to our games without careful observation of play habits. I believe I share this peave with Mr. Portnow, and my article is stabbing at the same shrouded wrongs as his is – just with different semantics.

You were also saying that figuring out the mechanics behind a personal choice turns it into a more mathematical one, was that right? (Sorry if I’m paraphrasing a lot here; I’m trying to understand the gist of the article.) This assumes that you’re going along with Sid Meier’s quote of games being ‘a series of meaningful choices’, and thus anything that undermines the meaning of these choices hurts the game.

You also mentioned that life consists of meaningful choices, which got me thinking: is the reason that games are often not taken seriously because their choices often lack meaning? Thus, if you subscribe to the idea that games are art (as I do), then the goal would be to include more meaningful choices in games. While I’m all for this, would making games more meaningful and unpredictable, i.e. more like life, make them more entertaining, increase their replay value, etc.? If handled correctly, then yes; but on the flip side, make games too much like life, and you risk alienating the player. Life isn’t fair, and so many factors are unknown, often leading us down dead ends. We’re trying to entertain players, not frustrate them.

Interactivity is indeed the strength of the games medium, and I’d have to say that the core of this article is how to include choices in games that take full advantage of this power of interactivity, thus making games more engaging. To do this, choices should matter and be meaningful.