I tend to become obsessed with pastimes for several months at a stretch before moving on to a new interest — a video game that I’m playing, a creative franchise like The Lord of the Rings or Star Trek, or even writing Wikipedia articles.  My current obsession is answering people’s questions on subjects ranging from entertainment to technology on the question and answer site Quora.

The other day I saw a question that really surprised me:  “Why does everyone hate Minecraft?”  I immediately typed up the following reply:

Everyone does not hate Minecraft. It is one of the most popular video games of all time. In 2014, the game had 100 million registered users, with 14.3 million sales on the PC alone. Later that year Microsoft purchased the game’s publisher, Mojang, for $2.5 billion, something they would not have done if everyone hated the game.

Nor does everyone think it is a childish game. The internet has thousands of articles lauding Minecraft, like:

• 5 Surprising Benefits to Playing Minecraft
• 10 Reasons Why Minecraft Is Beneficial for Your Kids
• Could Minecraft help kids get smarter?
• Minecraft Is Shaping A Generation, And That Is A Good Thing
• Top 10 Best Benefits Of Playing Minecraft Games For Children
• Why Minecraft is more than just another video game
• 8 ways Minecraft works on your brain
• Why Playing Minecraft Could be Healthier Than Watching TV

Anyone who thinks that Minecraft is hated and looked down upon as being a childish game is seriously misinformed. It is, in fact, one of the most popular and praised video games of all time.

Sure, there are some people who don’t like it, but then, there are also people who don’t like Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, the Beatles, the Mona Lisa, chocolate ice cream, cats, football, and just about anything else you can name. Just become some people don’t like something, doesn’t mean that everyone does.

I thought what I wrote in my reply was pretty common knowledge, and so I began to wonder about the person who posted the question.  It was probably a kid, one who enjoyed playing Minecraft, but his friends had moved on to other games and were teasing him about playing a “child’s game”.

Many people seem think that if something is appealing to children, that it had childlike qualities, then it must be unsuitable for adults.  And that reminds me of my answer to another question I just answered on Quora,  “Why are Disney films childish?”

I disagree with the assessment that Disney movies are childish. Disney films have a common theme of facing challenges, fearing failure, but ultimately overcoming those obstacles. Often, those obstacles involve mature themes. In Dumbo, the little elephant deals with bigotry and rejection. In Bambi, the young deer deals with the loss of his mother. In The Lion King, Simba deals with the thought that he committed patricide and exiles himself. These are not silly storylines, but ones that can resonate with adults.

However, Disney films are targeted for the entire family, and as such, they are very appealing to children. Part of that appeal is that the protagonist is often a child or young adult. Another aspect is that Disney films usually have humorous scenes and often songs. Also, the style of Disney animation is one that children can easily watch and interpret.

As to why Disney uses this formula for its films, it is because their family-friendly formula is an enormously successful one. Twelve of the 100 top box office earners of all time, adjusted for inflation, are Disney animated films.

When we are enjoying something in a childlike way, that does not mean we are being childish, because even that which is designed for children can have benefits for adults.  Which brings me to Pokemon GO, as all video games articles written this month must do.

Although Pokemon is a media franchise that has always been associated with children, millions of grown-ups are suddenly playing its augmented reality incarnation.  No doubt some of these players are attracted to the nostalgia of playing Pokemon as kids, but even those who are new to Pokemon are attracted by the childlike simplicity of the game, the cute animations, and the fantasy of catching little creatures hidden around their neighborhood.

Many other adults roll their eyes when they see supposed grown-ups wandering the sidewalks and parks staring at their mobile phones and playing a “kid’s game”, but it is not childish to enjoy such things.  Remember that “Chewbacca Mom” video that went viral a couple of months ago.  The reason it went viral was that it was delightful to see someone to so completely and unashamedly tap into their inner child, and as we watch it, we tapped into our inner child ourselves.

It is essential that we tap into our inner child regularly , whether it be by watching a film, wearing a mask, or playing a game that appeals to our childlike qualities.  Without wonder, laughter, or fantasy, the pressures of real-life would dull our minds and dampen our spirits, and allowing that to happen out of fear that we would otherwise look silly — well, that is a thing that would be childish to do.

Like just about every other person with a mobile phone this week, I downloaded Pokémon Go, the new augmented reality game allowing players to capture, battle, train, and trade virtual Pokémon who appear throughout the real world. The goal of the game is stated clearly in the franchise’s slogan: Gotta catch ’em all!  And as I travelled about this weekend, I would open up the game app and search for Pokémon in the vicinity, pursuing the game’s goal of catching as many Pokémon as I could.

All games have goals, or objectives.  The goal might be to capture all the  Pokémon, outrace an opponent, destroy an invading army, explore a realm, build a city, solve a puzzle, align falling blocks, escape from a locked room, complete a task before a timer counts down, beat the odds, outwit an opponent, reach the conclusion of a story, or rescue the prince.  Without a goal, an activity is simply a pastime, without any resolution or sense of accomplishment.

Goals give something for the player to strive for.  They define what players are expected to accomplish within the rules that define the structure and boundaries of the game.  Game might have many smaller goals that are short term (“catch the closest Pokémon to you.”) and  a number of intermediate long term goals (“catch all the Pokémon of a given type) in addition to an ultimate goal (“catch ’em all!”).

Goals need not all be of the same type nor demand the same skills from the player.  Skills can broadly be classified into three categories:

• Physical.  To achieve the game’s goals, the player must use some form of physical skills, such as manipulating a game controller deftly or quickly typing the correct key sequence.
• Mental. To achieve the game’s goals, the player must use some form of strategic skills, such as working out the correct sequence of steps in a logic puzzle game or wisely using resources to build a good balance of combat units for defeating enemy forces.
• Randomness. To achieve the game’s goals, the player must overcome odds that could cause him or her to loss progress.  This might involve the odds of successfully landing a sword blow on a goblin in a role-playing game or of beating an opponent’s hand in a gambling game.

Most games involve some combination of these types of goals, although a good game designer will be careful to use just enough randomness to add variety and uncertainty in the game.  Too much randomness, and players will feel like their actions and decisions won’t matter.  One good way to keep your skill level balanced is to ask playtester’s how much physical, mental and randomness skills, on a scale from one to five, are required to succeed in your game, and if the results are different from what you expected, you have some tweaking to do.

Goals need to be properly adjusted even at the individual level.  Ideally, each goal should have the following qualities:

• Clear.  The player should never be position of not having an objective.  The game should always clearly communicate, explicitly or implicitly, what the player’s next goal is.  Once the player accomplishes one goal, the next goal should be immediately presented to the player.
• Obtainable.  The player should be provided with enough information and resources to actually achieve each of the game’s goals.  Maybe not at first, but after a sufficient amount of effort, the player should be able to accomplish what the game asks.  Otherwise, the player will leave the game in frustration.
• Concrete.  The player should never be in doubt about whether he or she has achieved the goals in a game.  Ideally, the game should provide immediate feedback — that is, notification of the player’s success or failure — when the player attempts to accomplish a game goal.
• Challenging.  The player must expend some amount of effort in achieving the goal (unless the game is specifically understood by the player to be a mindless game, designed to simply pass the time with no effort).  Now, that effort can be small or great, depending on whether the game is casual or hardcore, but if no effort at all is required to achieve the game’s goals, the player will leave the game out of boredom.Note that as players spend time playing the game, they become more adept at whatever skills are required to achieve the game’s goals.  This means that goals must increase in difficulty as the player’s skill increases.
• Rewarding.  The player must find value in accomplishing the goal.  Some goals benefit the player within the game’s context, such as by advancing the player’s progress towards the game’s conclusion or revealing more of the game’s story.  These are intrinsic rewards.  Goals that benefit the player outside the context of the game are extrinsic rewards; examples of extrinsic goals are exercise games that promote weight loss or gambling games in which players can earn real money.

All of these qualities are essential in keeping the player in a state of flow, the mental state in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. When players experience flow, time stops, nothing else matters and when they finally come out of it, they have no concept of how long they have been playing.  This flow state is what makes games engaging, and the proper handling of the presentation and rewards for goals are essential for maintaining it.  Remember that your own goal as a game designer is to catch as many players as your can, and to keep them engaged for as long as possible.