by DaviddesJ
jens_hoppe wrote:
Not because it adds strategic depth, or better realism or any other generally agreed upon quality in a game, but seemingly simply because some players derive satisfaction from mastering the more complex piece of machinery that a complex game is.
I think that's an example of the general point, but you can say something even broader than that. People can just enjoy the more complex game because there's more different things in the game interacting in different ways. Comparing more complex games to simpler rulesets is like comparing more elaborate dishes to extremely simple food preparations, or ornate decorations to spartan modernism, etc. Some people tend to prefer one, some the other, some either one depending on the situation. I might be in the mood for an apple, off a tree, with nothing done to it, or for an extremely elaborate confection with dozens of ingredients that play off one another.
As best I can understand, some people want to say, sure, you can enjoy the fact that the more complex game has more different elements and rules interacting in different ways, but that's different from enjoying the complexity. Yet, that's exactly what the word "complexity" actually means.