To celebrate their tenth anniversary, Gamefaqs recently organized a contest, asking their readers to cite the ten best games ever. That seems to be a right angle to start this column, as a good game is necessarily not just good enough, it has to be the best game, at least to a certain audience at a certain time, or else, it just won’t be picked up.

Over time, many systems have been developed to evaluate games. Do they reach their target? Do they help gamers decide what they should buy, and developers to make better games? To some extent, but they certainly don’t help making "the best game ever". That’s because they do not consider the concept of attention. By concentrating on so-called objective criteria, they miss the point: defining what makes a game compelling, what makes it fondly remembered ten years after.

Attention, please!

By focusing on metrics such as number of boxes sold or graphic score in such or such magazine, we tend to ignore what is the root of the success of every good game: can it get the player’s attention? can it compete with everything else that’s assaulting their mind, can it become, for some time, their favorite hobby? In a nutshell - is it compelling? If the answer is yes, then the bet is won. The game works, it will probably successful and if not, its sequel will be. Communities will emerge around the games, fans will help sell the game and will start expecting the next one. If not, then all the marketing expense will probably be wasted money. Fortunately, it is possible (though uneasy) to detect early on whether a game will be compelling or not, and how not to blow it through its development.

This diagram shows the elements that constistute a compelling game.

One very important point is that they must be consistent: each game element must not undermine, but reinforce the others.

The most important factor is fiction, in its broad meaning. This does not only cover a storyline, but all of the fictive elements that the game conveys, such as game heroes and game identity.

The other factors depend less on the game definition, and more on its organisation.
 The game must be fair, to prevent frustration;
 it must be deep, in a sense that it doesn’t have to be complex or long, but it can be played differently by different type of gamers;
 and, finally, there must be enough tension to keep the player active.