A player should be at most presented with seven options at any one time.The reason for the number seven here is a reference to the magic number seven, plus or minus two, described in a 1956 paper by psychologist George Miller. The core of the concept is that humans can remember about seven different things at a time; that we can distinguish between seven different qualities or quantities before our capacity to comprehend is compromised.
Miller's Argument
Miller notes that we can get around this: we can count way past the number seven itself, as well as use thousands of words written with 26 different letters, because experience and tricks (such as using arabic numerals in a base-10 system) let us expand the range of qualities that we can express and remember. The point is really that, when faced with a new, unfamiliar group of items, we are at first stuck dividing them into at most seven categories. Never studied trees before? Then you'd probably be able to identify or describe seven types. Never studied breeds of dogs, or types of land animals, or crops, or minerals, or types of architecture, or music? Our natural ability lets us stick them into seven groups. Maybe only five, maybe sometimes nine, depending on the person's intelligence and experience. Until we start studying the subject, of course -- and then we learn all sorts of attributes that let us learn about more types.
And so when you design a game that has new creature types, or treasure types, or places to go -- your players will only be able to distinguish between about seven of them.
Until they learn your game. And there's the rub: how long are they going to play your game? For a short game, one that you finish in ten to fifteen hours, your players are unlikely to learn a lot about your game world, or want to spend time and effort building an efficient mental model to distinguish between all the types of Frobozzes and Gromixes that you've invented, or even to remember if Mithril or Truesilver or Adamantite is the better armor -- even if they've seen those names before.
Roguelike games start with the player in town. They've got ten buildings to choose from, plus stairs to go down and villagers to talk to. The player doesn't group this into "fourteen things" -- that's what Miller answered. The player will see this as three choices: enter a random building, talk to a random person, or head down the stairs. Because there's ten buildings, you've broken the rule of seven: it will take some time for the player to learn what those ten buildings are. If there were only seven, they'd do it quickly. The time difference between learning three buildings, five buildings, or seven buildings is tiny; trying to distinguish between ten takes exponentially longer.
Game Design Ethics
So how does this impact the game designer? It'll stress your players, and possily frustrate them, if you constantly tax their memory. Running out of time and have to choose the right one of those ten shops? Users will fail because they couldn't remember correctly. If you had given them seven choices, players would be a lot less frustrated.
Andrew Doull's basic point about clicklets is that forcing the user to do something boring and repetetive, mindless, without choice or consequence, or in a taxing way is cruel. And the main reason to avoid cruelty is to make a fun game; something that players want to come back to.
Some games frustrate me needlessly. It really turns me off of the game. If I sit down to play a game and am then bombarded with dumbass, frustrating rules and mindless clicking to get what I want, then I feel like a product I purchased for the purpose of entertainment has lied to me, and is subjecting me to pain and frustration. I find that unethical.
An analogy for a moment: Is it unethical to kill someone if you didn't know that what you were doing would cause their death? Out in the real world, we call that manslaughter, and it might be involuntary, but it'll still get you convicted and thrown in jail.
A game designer that builds a frustrating system is still guilty of frustrating his users. It doesn't matter if you knew ahead of time or not. Not knowing is negligence; it indicates a lack of forethought, of consideration. It's inconsiderate.
The idea of the ethics of game design is that: a game designer shouldn't build systems that frustrate, bore, or needlessly confuse their users. (I don't mean all confusion; some jokes and puzzles rely centrally on confusion. Work with me, here.) A designer shouldn't build such systems whether they know they'll have that effect or not; a designer is responsible for building a good product, and for learning more about his art such that he avoids such sinful mechanics.
