Emergent gameplay is the creative use of a game in ways unexpected by the game designer's original intent. It commonly appears as complex behaviors that emerge from the interaction of simple game mechanics. This is most common in computer games and is often prized by game designers.

Emergent play can either be totally outside the game (machinima) or have a direct impact on the gameplay (see "game currency trading" below).

The components of a game can be broken down in basic form to include: a game universe, game rules, game objects, communication tools, game objectives (or winning scenario) and game engine (or board). Emergent play usually involves leveraging one or more of these components.

More recently game designers have attempted to encourage emergent play by providing tools to players such as placing web browsers within the game engine (such as in EVE Online, The Matrix Online), providing XML integration tools and programming languages (Second Life), and fixing exchange rates (Project Entropia).

Examples

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Machinima

Machinima is the art of making films using a game engine. Cut scenes in games rendered using the game models instead of motion video or actors are examples of machinima. Usually though the term is used to describe content not originally developed for the game.

Game currency trading

Traders in massively multiplayer online games with economic systems play purely to acquire virtual game objects or avatars which they then sell for real-world money on auction websites or game currency exchange sites. This results in the trader's play objective to make real money regardless of the original game designer's objectives.

Many games prohibit currency trading in the end user license agreement (EULA), but it is still a common practice. The issue of currency trading is hotly debated in gaming circles.

Lurikeen invasion

Inspired by the diminutive form of the smallest avatar in Dark Age of Camelot, some players started an imaginary political movement based on the power of the lurikeen class. Thousands of players quickly joined created characters ending in '*keen' eg. 'cokekeen', 'iamkeen' on a single game server. As Dark Age of Camelot requires a roughly equal balance of three different races on each server, that particular game server quickly became unbalanced and overrun by the 'keen invasion'.

Gambling and lotteries

This is in game such as EVE Online and Dark Age of Camelot that are not gambling games but rather role-playing or simulation games. The provision of gambling services in exchange for in-game currency can take the forms of a lottery, card games, event betting, or any number of other variations, most often at least loosely based on established real-world games. Players typically establish a betting facility, lottery etc. Players typically create a website for executing the gambling, then accept payment from gamblers using in-game currency to credit the gambler's website account. Winnings are then paid back to the gambler's account.

Glitch or quirk-based strategies

In several games, especially first-person shooters, game glitches or physics quirks can become viable strategies, or even spawn their own game types. In id Software's Quake series, rocket jumping is a popular strategy (as is gauss jumping in Valve Corporation's Half-Life series) — a player fires a rocket at the ground while jumping, allowing the weapon's splash damage to propel him to otherwise unreachable areas. In the Tribes series of games, a technique known as "skiing" has become a vital part of any strategy, and the basis for several mods; to ski, a player slides down a hill, taking advantage of a physics glitch that allows a potentially infinite speed increase to catapult himself over great distances. Just as vital to most strategies are the glitches in GunZ The Duel, many of which allow players to cancel weapon animations into each other and create unintended, devastating combos. The ever popular Grand Theft Auto series has also spawned its own sub-culture; whereby enthusiastic gamers take advantage of the open gameplay to perform stunts on the various vehicles offered.

Real world services in exchange for game currency

These are where players provide real world services (like website design, web hosting) and are paid with in-game currency. This can influence the economy of the game, as players gain wealth/power in the game unrelated to game events.

Sequence Breaking

Completing games without getting certain items or by skipping seemingly required portions of gameplay result in sequence breaking, a technique that has developed its own dedicated community. Often, speed of completion and/or minimalist use of items are respectable achievements.

Cat and Mouse

In car racing games, particularly Project Gotham Raceing on the XBox, players came up with this variation. The racers play on teams of at least two cars. Each team picks one very slow car.

The object of each team is to have their slow car cross the finish line first.

So it is up to the other team members (who drive fast cars) to push their slow car into the lead and ram their opposing teams' slow cars off the road.

Games