The Game Design Paradox: Why We Love to Play With Pain

The Game Design Paradox: Beyond “Fun,” How Designers Use Failure, Frustration, and Repetition to Create Growth and Keep Players Hooked

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Fun Isn’t Comfort: True “fun” in games doesn’t come from being comfortable or winning easily. It comes from the process of mastering a challenge that pushes back.
• Pain is a Tool: Frustration, repetition, and failure are not design flaws. They are the essential tools designers use to create “meaningful effort” and guide players toward growth.
• Growth > Joy: The goal of many modern games is not to “design joy” but to “design growth.” They are systems for teaching players resilience and making them feel competent.
• Fairness is a Contract: Players will tolerate high difficulty as long as it feels fair. Failure must be tied to the player’s own skill (which can be improved), not to random, unfair, or poorly explained game mechanics.
• This is a Business Model: This “mastery of pain” philosophy is the engine behind live service games. It creates long-term engagement (“growth”) that can then be monetized by selling players ways to accelerate or showcase their mastery.

The Core Contradiction: Fun Isn’t What You Think It Is

It starts with a simple, almost comical observation. Why is “walking” in real life a chore, but “exploring” in a video game a grand adventure? Why is “going to work” an obligation, but managing a farm in Stardew Valley or paying off a debt to Tom Nook in Animal Crossing a beloved hobby? And most of all, why is “dying” a real-life tragedy, but a “Game Over” just a temporary setback that makes us more determined?

This paradox reveals a fundamental truth for designers: “fun” is not a property of an activity itself. It’s a property of the system in which the activity happens.

Games are experts at this transformation. They take a “not fun” action and wrap it in a system of clear goals, direct feedback, and high-reward discovery. Real-world walking might be aimless, but in-game exploring is structured around finding the next treasure, the next viewpoint, or the next clue. The game’s system provides the “alchemy” that turns a chore into a compelling loop.

This reframes the entire job of a game designer. They aren’t just entertainers; they are architects of human potential. This leads to a powerful thesis, one championed by industry experts like Sergei Vasiuk, a director at Wargaming: Fun isn’t the absence of pain. It’s the mastery of pain.

This idea flips the script on traditional design. It argues that players don’t actually respect easy games. They respect fair fights. They cherish the memory of “every loss that taught control” and “each wall they learned to climb.” The core pivot for any modern designer is this: ❌ Stop designing joy. ✅ Start designing growth. The goal is to build a system that makes a player’s effort feel meaningful.

The Psychology of “Meaningful Effort”

This philosophy isn’t just a catchy phrase for a business presentation. It’s built on a solid foundation of decades of human psychology. When a designer builds a “growth loop,” they are tapping directly into the core drivers of human motivation.

Finding the “Flow State”

The first and most important concept is the “Flow State,” a term coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow is that magical “in the zone” feeling, a state of “optimal experience” where you are so fully immersed in an activity that the rest of the world just melts away.

But here’s the catch: this state is not achieved through comfort. Flow only happens when a person’s skills are perfectly matched to the challenges at hand. Csikszentmihalyi described this as a “flow channel” that exists precisely between two negative states:

1. Boredom (which happens when the activity is too easy)
2. Anxiety (which happens when the activity is too difficult)

That “easy game” the paradox text warns against? That’s Csikszentmihalyi’s “boredom.” The “unfair fight?” That’s “anxiety.” The “fair fight” that players respect is the flow channel itself. The “pain” of the challenge is not just a feature; it is required. Without it, the player gets bored and disengages. A good designer’s job is to be a “frustration-feedback” manager, keeping the player perfectly balanced in that motivating channel.

Building a “Growth Mindset”

The second psychological pillar is “Designing Growth,” which is a direct application of Carol Dweck’s “Growth Mindset” theory. Dweck’s research identifies two core beliefs people have about their own abilities:

• Fixed Mindset: Believes intelligence and skill are static. You’re either good at something or you’re not.
• Growth Mindset: Believes ability can be developed through dedication and effort.

Video games are perhaps the most effective “Growth Mindset” delivery systems ever created. They provide a perfect environment to teach players, through direct experience, that effort leads to results. Research shows that players with a growth mindset perform better, don’t let mistakes rattle them, and actively seek out difficult challenges.

Why? Because they see failure as a lesson, not a personal limitation. A fixed-mindset player who fails a level thinks, “I’m just not good at this.” A growth-mindset player thinks, “I need to learn why I failed so I can get it next time.”

The “Game Design Paradox” is a manifesto for instilling this mindset. The game’s structure teaches you, one failure at a time, that the “pain” of failure is just a signal to learn. It systematically reframes a “fail” into “flow.”

The 7 Pillars: A Practical Framework for Designing Growth

So, if you remember, we have already seen these 7 pillars in another article which are able to help us on how do designers actually build these systems? How do they "turn pain into play?" It boils down to a framework of seven specific, actionable principles.

Pillar 1: Hide Lessons Inside Repetition

"Repetition isn’t grind when it refines skill."

This pillar tackles the most common "pain" in games: doing the same thing over and over. A designer's job is to make that repetition meaningful. It's the difference between "practice" and "grind." Practice is repetition that builds skill. Grind is repetition that just fills time.

• Positive Case Study: Super Mario Bros. (World 1-1) This is the gold standard, a level so perfectly designed it's taught in university courses. World 1-1 is a "hidden tutorial" that teaches every core mechanic without a single word of text. The design is a masterclass in hidden lessons. The player starts on the far left, with empty space to the right, subconsciously teaching them to move right. The very first Goomba is introduced in a wide-open, "safe" area, allowing the player to experiment. Jumping is the most natural action, and a successful jump (killing the enemy) provides immediate positive reinforcement.But the genius is what comes next. The level immediately iterates on this lesson. It places question blocks above the next set of enemies. The player must now differentiate: jumping on an enemy is good, and jumping under a block is also good. The design's perfectly calculated geometry forces the player to refine their new jumping skill through immediate repetition. That's not grind; its skill refinement.
• Negative Case Study: The "Grind" The pillar fails when the "lesson" is absent. "Grind" is officially defined as the "repetition of an uninteresting task" that is required for advancement. This happens when a player's options for progression are limited, forcing them into a monotonous loop.This is most prevalent in live service games and MMOs. In games like World of Warcraft or Old School RuneScape, players might be forced to "engage in repetitive tasks" like fighting the same enemies for hours to gain one level, or "repetitively performing tasks like mining, fishing, or woodcutting." While some players find this "relaxing," it often just serves as a "roadblock." This is where the business model often steps in, leveraging "fear of missing out (FOMO)" with "battle passes and other timed content" to motivate players through the boring grind.

Pillar 2: Balance Frustration with Feedback

"Every loss should whisper, 'Try again.'"

This is the active, real-time management of the "flow channel." Feedback, both positive and negative, is the mechanism for balancing the game. It stops the game from becoming too easy (boring) or too hard (anxiety).

• Case Study (Balancing): Mario Kart The infamous "blue shell" (or spiny shell) is the classic, if controversial, example. It's a "negative (or balancing) feedback loop." When a player is doing too well (in first place), the system gives a powerful item to a player at the back to specifically disrupt the leader. This "catch-up mechanic" actively prevents a "snowballing" success state, pulling the leader back to the pack and giving other players "a chance to participate." It balances the frustration of losing with a (sometimes) frustrating tool for the winner, keeping the system dynamic for everyone.
• Case Study (Failure Feedback): Hades The rogue-lite Hades is a modern masterpiece of this pillar. It perfectly embodies the idea that "Every loss should whisper, 'Try again.'" In Hades, "loss" (player death) is not a "Game Over"—it is the core progression mechanic. The game employs a primary negative feedback loop: dying makes the player lose all their progress from that specific run. This provides the "pain" and "frustration."However, this is immediately balanced by positive feedback: "dying is necessary to move the plot forward." Each death returns the player to the game's hub, where they can spend permanent currency on upgrades, interact with fascinating characters, and advance the narrative. Failure is not just feedback; it is growth. The loss directly whispers, "Try again, you are now stronger."

Pillar 3: Reward Progress, Not Perfection

"A small 'well done' beats late wins."

This pillar is all about maintaining momentum. By providing frequent, small-scale rewards, the design avoids the "all-or-nothing" anxiety of a single, distant victory. It ensures the player always feels like they are making "forward momentum."

• Case Study (Extrinsic): Gacha & Daily Logins This design is most prominent in the mobile and gacha markets, which often stand at the "opposite end of this spectrum" from high-skill games. In a gacha game, rewards are given out "with great frequency." Currency is "often given out through events or daily logins without the player having to accomplish much." This is the "small 'well done'" reduced to its most basic form. It rewards the progress of time (logging in for another day) rather than the perfection of skill, creating a powerful, low-effort retention hook.
• Case Study (Intrinsic): "Un-tethered Progression" A more respectful and empowering version of this pillar is what's called "un-tethered progression," which allows the player to "go at their own pace." In games like Diablo 3 or the Mario Galaxy series, the player is free to "raise or lower the difficulty at their leisure." Expert players can raise the difficulty to earn greater rewards, while novice players can lower it to learn without being blocked by a "wall." This system perfectly "reward[s] progress, not perfection." It allows all players to "reach the same point at their own pace and feel like they’re the ones in control."

Pillar 4: Let Failure Feel Fair

"Players who know why they lost return."

This is the "fair fight" contract. It is the single most critical pillar in the entire "mastery of pain" thesis.

Fair failure reinforces a "Growth Mindset" by fostering an internal locus of control. The player must believe their failure is due to their own (internal) ability, which can be improved. They cannot believe it is due to external factors (like random luck or bad design), which cannot be improved.

• Positive Case Study: Dark Souls The Dark Souls series is revered, almost worshipped, for this very principle. Its difficulty is incredibly high, but it is, for the most part, meticulously "fair." The game is built on a "failure rhetoric" that normalizes the experience of losing. The world is full of other characters who are also failing, which makes the player's own struggle feel like part of the story.Mechanically, failure (death) is "grounded in the player's own ability." Traps can be managed by looking at "context clues." Players who are defeated know exactly why: a "greedy" extra attack, a poorly-timed dodge, or a failure to observe an enemy's pattern. Because the failure is internal, the player believes it can be corrected. And so, they "return."
• Negative Case Study: The Bed of Chaos (Dark Souls) Ironically, the "easy answer" for "poor design/unfair game play" comes from within Dark Souls itself: the Bed of Chaos boss fight. This fight is "universally maligned" and "objectively terrible, and unfair" precisely because it breaks the game's own "fair failure" contract.Player testimony highlights the reasons perfectly: "I hate bed of chaos because it is legitimately a terribly designed fight... has an arena that actively can kill you if you don't know the ground is going to fall, and is legitimately completely RNG dependent." Players are killed not by a lack of skill, but by an external factor—a random arm-sweep or a floor collapse they could not predict. It's a "gimmick fight" that removes player agency. It creates "pain" without any path to "mastery," and as one player put it, "winning doesn't feel good."

Pillar 5: Introduce Patterns Gradually

"Brains love decoding, but hate overload."

This pillar is a direct application of Vygotskian learning theory, specifically the concepts of "Zone of Proximal Development" (ZPD) and "Scaffolding."

"Scaffolding" is defined as "breaking up the learning into chunks and providing a tool, or structure, with each chunk." It bridges the gap between what a player can do on their own and the next thing they need help to achieve. This systematic, gradual introduction of complexity is what prevents the "anxiety" or "overload" that causes players to quit. A designer who just throws all the mechanics at the player at once isn't making a "hard" game; they're making a "bad" one.

• Case Study: Super Mario Bros. & World of Warcraft The original Super Mario is a masterclass in scaffolding. World 1 introduces the basic enemy patterns: Goombas (walk), Koopa Troopas (walk + shell), and Piranha Plants (timed). World 2 then scaffolds this learning by introducing a new gameplay element (water) with a new set of enemies (Blooper, Cheep Cheep) that obey different rules. Each world builds on the last, never overwhelming the player.World of Warcraft scaffolds ability complexity. A new Warlock player is given a basic spell like Immolate (a simple damage-over-time effect) early on. Players "master" this simple loop. Only at higher levels are synergistic abilities like Incinerate introduced, which "generates extra resources" only when used with Immolate. This complex "interplay" would be "overload" for a new player, but it's an engaging new pattern for a mastered one.

Pillar 6: Create Micro-Victories

"Tiny wins reset dopamine, keep motion."

This pillar explains the pacing of the reward cycle. It’s about ensuring the player is always on the cusp of some small "win." This leverages the brain's dopamine system to keep the player hooked. Experienced designers think about this in three nested time-scales: the "Micro, Macro, and Meta" loops.

1. Micro Loop: "Right now" (seconds). This is the emotional, reactionary "core gameplay." Think of the sound of collecting a coin, or the flash of a "headshot."
2. Macro Loop: "Near future" (minutes/session). This is the mental, planning loop. It's what keeps a player in a session, the "just one more turn" feeling. Examples include completing a level or finishing a quest.
3. Meta Loop: "Longer than a session" (days/weeks). This is the long-term goal that makes a player return tomorrow. Examples include leveling up, buying a new item, or seeing the end of the story.

• Case Study: Candy Crush This mobile game is a perfect, purified example of this pillar in action. Its addictive nature comes from its perfectly nested loops.
  • Micro-Victory: "swap candy around." This action is immediate, simple, and provides a "dopamine reset" with every single match.
  • Macro-Victory: "match candies, complete a level." This is the "mental reward" that requires planning and drives the "one more turn" macro loop.
  • Meta-Victory: "daily rewards," "special events," "clear an area," "get past your friends." This structure of nested, high-frequency rewards is the mechanical engine for "keeping motion" and is foundational to mobile and live service design.

Pillar 7: Rotate Between Mastery and Mystery

"Once a loop’s learned, change one thing."

This is the ultimate long-term retention strategy, designed specifically for mastered players. Once a player achieves total mastery over a game's systems, the game becomes predictable. When it becomes predictable, it becomes "boring," and the player leaves the "flow channel."

"Mystery" is the introduction of a new, unexplained variable that resets the entire learning loop. It forces the player to abandon their mastered (and now boring) strategies and begin the "mastery of pain" cycle all over again with a new problem.

• Case Study (Emergent Mystery): The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild BOTW is a "master-class example of open world game design" built entirely on this principle. Its "core pillar" is "chemistry"—a set of physics-based systems that "react... to each other in ways that make sense." The game creates "emergent gameplay" by giving the player a toolbox for mastery (runes, weapons, elements). The mystery is not "what's in the next chest?" but "what happens if I combine these systems?"Here's how it works. A player masters climbing. Then, it starts raining—the game has "change[d] one thing." The mastered loop is broken. The player must now solve a new problem (the mystery of climbing in the rain). Or, a player masters combat. Then, a thunderstorm starts. The player can create a new mastery loop by throwing a metal weapon at an enemy to attract a devastating lightning strike. The game provides a near-infinite rotation of mastery and player-driven mystery.
• Case Study (Hidden Mystery): Harvest Moon A much more subtle example is Harvest Moon's stamina system. Most modern games master this system for the player by providing a visible stamina bar. Harvest Moon introduces mystery by hiding the exact numerical value. The player is given only "visual cues": the character "wipe[s] sweat with a handkerchief" or "falls on their butt." This forces the player to move from mastery of a simple UI to a deeper, more naturalistic mastery of in-game observation, rotating the loop.

Here is a summary table of the seven pillars, their psychological function, and their implementation.

The "Painful" Truth: This Isn't Just Philosophy, It's a Business Model

It is important to understand that the "Game Design Paradox" text is not merely a philosophical musing. It's an advertisement. The text concludes by pointing the reader to a "deeper dive" in a book titled Running a Successful Live Service Game. The author, as mentioned, is Sergei Vasiuk, the LiveOps Director at Wargaming.

This context is critical. It reframes the 7 pillars from a "design philosophy" to a business strategy.

The Live Service Endgame: LTV

The explicit goal of the live service model, as detailed in promotional materials for Vasiuk's book, is to "turn player engagement into revenue streams for the next 10+ years." The entire business has "shifted from simply selling units to keeping players engaged for the long term."

The "North Star" metric for mastering this model is Lifetime Value (LTV).

This LTV is maximized by extending "LiveOps planning far beyond" a game's launch, "tackling challenges up to day 270 and beyond." This long-term retention is achieved through a "balance" of "player engagement, operations, and monetization," guided by Vasiuk's "3 LAPs of Operations" framework: Acquisition, Engagement, and Monetization.

How "Mastery of Pain" Becomes Monetization

This is where all the pieces click together. The "mastery of pain" is the engine of the live service model.

1. The 7 Pillars (especially Pillar 1 "Repetition" and Pillar 7 "Mastery/Mystery") create a "content treadmill" that provides endless "growth" loops.
2. The game creates a "painful" challenge—a new "grind" or a new "mystery" to solve.
3. This "pain" (the challenge) creates a powerful psychological demand for "mastery."
4. The "smart monetization" of the business model—such as battle passes, XP boosts, or cosmetic items—then provides the supply.

It offers players a way to accelerate their mastery, bypass the "painful" grind, or (in the case of cosmetics) showcase their hard-won mastery to other players, all in exchange for real money.

So, "designing growth" is, from a business perspective, synonymous with "designing a long-term, retentive, and monetizable player ecosystem." The framework is designed to make players want to engage with the "meaningful effort" that, in turn, drives the entire revenue model.

The Dark Side: When "Pain" Becomes Predatory

A responsible designer knows its crucial to distinguish this productive "pain" of a fair challenge from "pain points" and "fun pain," which are signs of poor or predatory design.

"Pain points" are just bad design. They are elements that make a game needlessly frustrating and break immersion, like a confusing user interface, unskippable cutscenes, or annoying, repetitive sound effects. These are flaws, not features.

"Fun pain" is the much more cynical and predatory version. This is where frustration is intentionally engineered into the game specifically to compel players to spend money. Think of games that give you a tiny inventory and then constantly sell you "bigger bags," or games that make you wait for 8-hour timers and then sell a "gem" to skip the wait. This is the absolute antithesis of the "fair fight." It disrespects the player, damages brand loyalty, and prioritizes short-term profit over long-term engagement.

The Counter-Thesis: What About Just Designing for Joy? 🤔

The "Game Design Paradox" text is powerful, but it makes one very bold, and very questionable, claim: "❌ Stop designing joy / ✅ Start designing growth."

This presents a false dichotomy. The massive, undeniable success of the "cozy game" genre serves as a direct and powerful counter-thesis. It proves that designing joy is an extremely valid, successful, and beloved model.

The "Comfort" Model: Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing

Games like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing represent a fundamentally different design philosophy. These cozy games are "intentionally designed to promote relaxation and comfort."

By design, they are "non-violent, low-pressure games" that feature "warm and welcoming" characters. Crucially, in these games, it is "nearly impossible to lose."

This is a direct rejection of the "mastery of pain" and "fair failure" (Pillar 4) model. The "pain" has been almost entirely removed. Their psychological function is different. They are not designed to test your competence; they are designed to reduce stress and anxiety. They are, as one writer put it, "meditation for people who hate meditating."

The Grand Unification: It’s All About Psychological Needs

So, who is right? The "pain" camp of Dark Souls or the "joy" camp of Stardew Valley?

The expert designer knows the answer: both.

They are not mutually exclusive. They are simply targeting different, and equally valid, human psychological needs.

Bartle's Taxonomy

Older models of player motivation, like the Bartle Taxonomy of Player Types, hinted at this. Bartle's model divides players into four types:

• Achievers: They want to master the game. (The "Paradox" model serves them).
• Killers: They want to compete with others. (The "fair fight" serves them).
• Socializers: They want to interact and connect with other players.
• Explorers: They want to discover the world and express themselves.

The "Cozy" model is a perfect fit for Socializers (a warm, welcoming community) and Explorers (self-expression, discovery, no set narrative).

The Real Answer: Self-Determination Theory

The most comprehensive and useful model for unifying these two "fun" philosophies is the Self-Determination Theory (SDT). In game design, this is often adapted as the Player Experience of Need Satisfaction (PENS).

SDT, which has been studied across thousands of people, posits that human engagement and "fun," in any activity, is driven by three core psychological needs:

1. Competence: The need to feel effective and achieve mastery.
2. Autonomy: The need to feel in control and make meaningful choices.
3. Relatedness: The need to feel connected to others.

This is the key that unlocks the entire puzzle. The "Game Design Paradox" is a powerful framework, but it is incomplete.

It is a 7-pillar masterclass in designing for Competence.

The "cozy" model, by contrast, is a masterclass in designing for Autonomy (self-expression, no set goals, playing at one's own pace) and Relatedness (a warm, non-judgmental community).

Conclusion: From Mastering Pain to Designing Meaning

This analysis began by deconstructing that simple 2x2 matrix, which shows that the core value of game design is its ability to transform mundane, "not fun" activities into engaging, "fun" systems.

The "Game Design Paradox" then provided a powerful, 7-pillar thesis for how this is achieved, arguing that "fun is the mastery of pain" and the true goal is "designing growth." This thesis is an effective, commercial-facing translation of foundational psychology, primarily Csikszentmihalyi's "Flow" and Dweck's "Growth Mindset." The 7 pillars are a practical framework for implementing these principles, with case studies from Super Mario Bros. to Dark Souls and Zelda: Breath of the Wild proving their power.

However, this design philosophy is not just academic; it is the foundational engine of the modern "Live Service" business model. In this model, the "growth" loop is the retention loop, and the "mastery" loop is the monetization loop, all designed to maximize long-term Player Lifetime Value (LTV).

Ultimately, the "mastery of pain" is not a universal truth of "fun." It is a highly effective framework for serving one of the three core human psychological needs: Competence.

Its absolute rejection of "joy" is a false dichotomy. The "cozy" model (Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing) proves that designing for Autonomy and Relatedness is an equally successful, valid, and "fun" endeavor.

The "real design" does not begin with a dogmatic choice between "pain" and "joy." It begins with a clear understanding of which psychological needs a product is built to serve. The "Paradox" text provides 7 potent tools for creating "meaningful effort." But "meaningful relaxation" and "meaningful connection" are just as powerful. An expert designer understands the difference and builds a fair, consistent, and respectful system to deliver that meaning to their players.

What do you think? Which model do you prefer? Do you play games for the "mastery of pain" or for "cozy" relaxation? Share your favorite examples of "fair" and "unfair" pain in the comments below, or check out our other articles on game design and player psychology.

Matthew Dogherby

Game Developer | Designer | Creative Storyteller

Matt Dogherby is a passionate game developer and designer based in Brisbane, Australia. With a career spanning over 15 years, Matt combines technical skill with a deep love for storytelling to create games that captivate and inspire. His unique perspective is shaped by the laid-back energy of Brisbane and his lifelong connection to the ocean, where he often trades coding sessions for surf sessions.