On emergence and progression

Jesper Juul distinguishes between games of emergence, where a game is specified as a small number of rules that combine and yield a large number of game variations, and games of progression, where a game presents the player with a series of puzzles or challenges which must be accomplished in a certain order. Discuss whether games of progression, which often attempt to combine a narrative structure with gameplay, are unique to computer-based games.

Certainly, games of progression are not exclusive to computer-based games, but such games are definitely more common in the computer-based media. Games of progression on non-computerbased media require large scale organization. Much capital needed to design such games (people-intensive games like RPGs). Thus, such games are not only not viable to develop but also tough to be distributed. (Besides, most RPGs may be games of progression, but outcomes can be very varied, depending on the participants and the gamemaster.)

But anyway, here's why I think games of progression are more common in the computer-based media.

Games of emergence are somewhat "self-regulatory" and always have different outcomes, so does not require any specific governing medium to help ensure proper "playing". Games of progression however, require precise and explicit governance in the form of programming, this is probably the reason why such games became more mainstream with the development of technology.

With such control over the playing by the author, such forms of games are easily distributed, thus the computer-based nature. While I can think of some non-computer-based games of progression, they are definitely fewer than those computer-based ones (Say, D&D, treasure hunts like the Amazing Race).

Besides, with advanced graphics in technology, game designers often want to exploit it so that the medium can do more than just provide games of strategy, for example Chess as a game of emergence. With such complex and gorgeous graphic interfaces, game designers often choose to incorporate play with a lot of narrative elements, which often require the game to be one of progression, so as to maintain some fixed narrative arc.

Certainly, many games of progression have infused elements of games of emergence - the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive (eg Warcraft and similar MMORPGs).

Commercial, novelty and utilitarian reasons:

While games of progression are few in non-computer media, they definitely became more common and numerous in the computer media - not only to harness advanced graphic technology, but also for ease of distribution. Furthermore, it's a nice breather from the centuries of games of emergence before the advent of the computer, and that of good graphics. Games of progression in the computer media are still novel, thus still becoming very popular. These are incentives and also reasons why I think games of progression are still mostly computer-based, though not necessarily unique to the media.