Game balance
Balancing difficulty and fairness in game design.
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Game balance is a field within game design that aims to make games more enjoyable and fair by carefully tuning difficulty. This involves tweaking rewards, obstacles, and other game components to deliver the experience the designers intend. At its core, balance is about creating a sense of fairness for the people playing. Fairness in game balance means adjusting things like difficulty, win and loss conditions, the state of the game, and its economy so they all work well together.
What counts as "balanced" depends heavily on the type of game. Most designers agree that the goal of balancing is to keep players engaged, often through a game's meta. This topic is frequently discussed by designers such as Ernest Adams, Jeannie Novak, Ian Schreiber, David Sirlin, and Jesse Schell, and is also covered by YouTube channels like Extra Credits, GMTK, and Adam Millard.
PvP, PvE and co-op games
Player versus player (PvP) games involve competition between human players. Player versus environment (PvE) games have players competing against the game world and its non-player characters (NPCs). Co-op, short for cooperative, refers to games—whether PvP or PvE—where players can team up with others. Game elements are everything within a video game that shapes the gameplay experience.
In many design frameworks, these elements are sorted into groups based on their role. A game element can be anything from a character's special ability to the relationships between different game mechanics. Game mechanics are the rules that let players interact with the game world. They define the goal, how players can or cannot achieve it, and what happens when they try.
Game mechanics
This includes challenges, competitive or cooperative play, win-loss conditions, game states, feedback loops, and how these all connect. Like balance, the terminology for mechanics can vary by designer or source. Buffs are changes that make a game element—such as an item, environment, or mechanic—more useful, while nerfs make it less useful.
These are common ways to adjust challenge. A buff or nerf can happen indirectly by altering other elements or adding new ones. Both words can also be used as verbs. The first established use of "nerf" was in the MUD community, referencing the soft foam Nerf toy bullets.
Quick Facts
- Field
- Game design
- Known for
- Balancing difficulty
- fairness
- and player experience in games
- Related concepts
- PvP
- PvE
- co-op
- buffs
- nerfs
- overpowered
- underpowered
- gimp
- revamp
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
Game balance is commonly discussed among game designers such as Ernest Adams, Jeannie Novak, Ian Schreiber, David Sirlin, and Jesse Schell, and is featured on YouTube channels including Extra Credits, GMTK, and Adam Millard. The concept depends on the game genre, and most designers agree it serves to provide an engaging player experience, especially through a meta. Key terms include buffs (changes that increase utility) and nerfs (changes that decrease utility), with the first established use of 'nerf' in the MUD community, referencing Nerf brand toys. The term 'buff' may come from bodybuilding culture.
Mechanics, Theme, and the Space Between
A game's mechanics and its theme are distinct, though they often travel together. Theme refers to the representational layer, what the game is about. In Monopoly, for instance, the mechanical act of buying and selling properties represents a broader narrative of real estate commerce. Two games can share nearly identical mechanics while wearing entirely different thematic skins, and the reverse is equally possible.
When the mechanical systems and the narrative or representational layer pull against each other, the result is what scholars call ludonarrative dissonance. At the opposite extreme sit abstract games, which carry no theme at all because their actions are not meant to represent anything external. Go is the classic example: stones on a grid, no story, no characters, purely structural play. This distinction matters because it clarifies that a game's identity is not reducible to its subject matter; the underlying mechanical architecture is what actually governs how players think, decide, and interact.
Gameplay as a Separate Concept
While casual conversation often treats gameplay and game mechanics as interchangeable, game studies scholarship draws a careful line between the two. In Playability and Player Experience Research, gameplay is defined as the interactive process of a player engaging with the game, something that only occurs when a player actually interacts with the underlying mechanics. Another framework, Dissecting Play, describes gameplay as the act of interacting with a game's design while performing cognitive tasks. Video games researcher Carlo Fabricatore breaks gameplay into two components: what the player can do, and what other entities in the game can do in response to those actions.
Ernest Adams and Andrew Rollings, in their game design text, describe gameplay as the combination and interaction of many game elements working together. Despite these scholarly distinctions, popular usage frequently collapses the two terms. The website gamedesigning.org, for example, simply defines gameplay as the core mechanics that determine a game's overall character, blurring the very boundary academics work to maintain.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is game balance in game design?
Game balance is a design discipline focused on tuning a game's difficulty, rewards, and obstacles so the overall experience feels fair and enjoyable. It's the craft of making sure every system a designer built actually delivers the intended player experience.
What does balancing a game actually involve in practice?
Designers adjust elements like win and loss conditions, the in-game economy, difficulty curves, and the broader game state so all components work together cohesively. The underlying goal is to create a genuine sense of fairness for everyone at the table.
Why does game balance matter to players?
When a game feels balanced, challenges feel earned and rewards feel meaningful rather than arbitrary. Poor balance can make a title feel either punishingly unfair or trivially easy, undermining the fun the designers set out to deliver.
Is there one universal definition of a 'balanced' game?
No—what counts as balanced shifts significantly depending on the game's genre and structure. A competitive PvP title, a cooperative PvE campaign, and a single-player narrative game all carry very different balance priorities.
What terms do fans use when talking about game balance changes?
Players frequently reference buffs, nerfs, overpowered or underpowered elements, 'gimps,' and full revamps when a mechanic needs rework. These terms all describe the ongoing tuning cycle designers use to keep a game fair and engaging over time.
More in Gaming Mechanics & Design
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Game balance (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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