While Steven brings up some valid points, I completely disagree with what he terms a "grind."  His definition of a grind (any repeated action required to progress on in the game) would basically place all gameplay of every game as grinding, so there is then no difference between gameplay and grinding.  I think a better defenition would be "repeated action where the players progress is only up the power scale and not forward through the game."

I will use some of his examples to try and differentiate what is grinding and what is simply gameplay.

Patapon, Final Fantasy and especially WOW are examples of games with grinding because you cannot simply progress throught the game.  Through the straight progression of levels or areas, your character or party will not become powerful enough to survive through the next area, requiring you repeat already visited areas.  In Patapon you must revisit leves multiple times to colect loot, and in Final Fantasy and WOW you must stick to an area with enemies that you are strong enough to defeat but also present enough of a challenge so that the rewards are worth your while.  

On the other hand, God of War is not representative of a game with a grind.  In God of War as you progress, Kratos enters an area, clears it of enemies and then move on to the next area.  While in some places you must win a fight to gain an ability that is required to progress, you are never required to power up any of the weapons you recieve.  It may be more difficult with weaker weapons but every area and enemy can be defeated with the stock power levels.  GoW also does not actually contain any grinding because once an area is cleared of enemies, thats it, the enemies are gone.  You cannot revisit areas for the sole purpose of powering up because all the enemies are dead.

I believe an example of a similar style game with (a type) of grinding is Ninja Gaiden.  In certain parts of the game you can enter an area where you are required to defeat 50 enemies in order to unlock an item like a scarab or a life of the gods.  These areas are not typical of grinding because because the items they yield are useful but not requiset to beating the game.

I believe that the only ways to combat the tedium of grinding is to have play mechanics that are variable enough so that you can tackle any situation in any number of ways.  Maybe you can mindlessly button mash through fights, but you are also capable of being more creative with your play technique.  An example of a game with good grinding is Digaea, because you have any number of characters, abilities and tactics at your disposal to make the grind as interesting as you are willing to make it through creative play style.  Final Fantasy grinding is not as good because your options for any given encounter are much more limited resulting in tedius play.

So grinding, as I see it, is not nearly as pervasive as Steven would have us believe it is and I do hope that Steven reads this so that he may see grinding a bit differently, and in turn allow make more convincing arguements on the subject in the future.

An advent calendar is superior in a number of ways to a bag of chocolate.

Am I getting close?

I've progressed some way further in Patapon now, and I have to say the grinding has become slightly less annoying as the options open up (and less necessary). Even so I'd like to elaborate on my original comments.

I still think the simplest solution would be to vary the songs on the mini-games, but some other changes would also help. Some kind of refund or exchange system as N'Gai suggests would make grinding less necessary (why is the most profitable grinding area in terms of Kaching the easiest and thus the most boring?). You could, for instance, exchange two or three or four resources for a single higher level resource. More interestingly, they could make the Zigaton levels replayable, or have non-story Zigaton grinding zones. These levels are just way more fun than the hunting grounds. I probably wouldn't have any problem at all with the grind if I was fighting Zigatons instead of defenceless animals (like I say, once they start fighting back it becomes less annoying) .

As for WoW, I gave up on it after a few weeks because the entire gameplay mechanic is a grind, and not a very interesting one at that. Compare it to Pirates of the Burning Sea, where you still grind but at least the ship combat is fun and involving. I don't know why it's so successful with the mass market, beyond the fact that it runs on low end systems and has perfected the addiction factor of Diablo-type games. I'm dying for someone to create an MMO that isn't a variant on that mechanic. APB looks very promising on that front.

Patapon has very little grind, compared to mmo's.  Collect, 20 hoofs, 15 cateyes, 12 troll beads, the only difference is the hit points and the drops.  Patapon only requires you to "grind" hunting missions if you army is too weak to advance.  Each boss battle and story battle drops weapons to power your army,  Can you ever take out the "grind" from RPGs and MMOs?  Is it possible?  Does the grind make the difference of "fun reward" of a casual and a hardcore in Eve Online and World of Warcraft, of course it does,  Any casual or hardcore, could pick up Patapon and enjoy its' levels and minigames on a PSP.  What other RPGs does the PSP have that does not include characters with tons of belts and earings?

The comments keep batting around the definition of a grind, and though everyone's swatted around it, I think the key separation of grind and play is a sense of either aesthetic or progression. I think both can convince the player they aren't grinding, of the two, progression being the better.

A new aesthetic, or in Patapon's case, new songs freshens a level. No longer do you feel forced to re-complete a task you already proved yourself capable, but the taks seems to have changed. Preferably, a few variables in the level change for each play through (sorry, I'm not as familiar with Patapon as you guys). That's what makes season play in sports games feel less like a grind, and more like unique play. Every 'Royals v. Cardinals' exhibition game is the same in theory, but its the new aesthetics (night game, different music, weather) and variables (injuries, errors) that make each play seem unique.

More important, games like God of War and Super Mario require a repetitive action, but that by no means make them a grind. If a repetitive action all games are a grind, all activities are a grind, and life is one big, depressing grind. I think these two examples satisfy the player with distraction. The players allowed to return to previous levels, but never forced. Unlike Patapon, the game never says, 'Look, we know you have the hot skills to beat level 3, but weren't able to build a pace between levels 3 and 4, so you better return to 3 in grind out the skills that would have been accessible to you through additional levels, ones between 3 and 4, that we never made." Is that too confusing? Basically, if you beat a level, you beat it. The play mechanic may repeat, but if you had the skill to beat level 3 you deserve to begin level 4, and have a fair chance at finishing it too.

A grind forces you to return to accomplishments you already proved you can defeat. Play acknowledges your skill, and allows you to progress. Play offers an immediate reaction to your action. A grind makes you repeat that action ad nauseam.

"The challenge that side missions pose to developers is almost paradoxical: how do you make them essential for those who choose to undertake them and inconsequential for those who don't?"

I think there's a fairly simple answer to this, if just one among many. Lore.

I myself am a big power gamer, a "munchkin" for you Pen & Paper players. How I play MMO's (or even just RPG's in general) is very min-max, it's all about the numbers. However, it's somewhat anomalous that, while I don't care for lore in MMO's such as WoW, I'm fascinated by the lore and character development that resides in games such as KotOR2, which first comes to mind since I just recently replayed it... twice. I can't honestly say whether any of you have played it, but I'm hoping you did.

I haven't forayed much into the Expanded Universe for Star Wars, or at all, but KotOR2 made me think about the force in ways I couldn't imagine. It clearly demonstrated how far reaching the effects the Force has, and quite frankly, how SCARY it really is. The Butterfly Effect on crack. Yet I experienced all that from side-quests and decidedly optional dialog trees.

Certainly people who aren't fans of the SW universe (a pox on them!) wouldn't care for all the lore, but for me, the side quests and lore are what MADE KotOR2 for me. The character Kreia alone was worth the price of admission.

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"I treated the bosses more like Big Daddies in BioShock"

It's funny that you should parallel the bosses in Patapon with the Big Daddies, now that I think of it, I TOO can parallel them, however, we differ on how we see the them (well duh). Different strokes I suppose.

I see the Big Daddies much how I saw the Little Sisters, I felt there was diminishing returns the more I fought. Now, if memory serves me right there was only one Big Daddy you actually HAD to kill, with the rest being "optional" provided you were good enough to proceed without all the ADAM. With that said, I'm not sure if I can rightly consider killing Big Daddies a grind, but it was certainly a repetition in gameplay I did not enjoy. (I should note that it wasn't just the Big Daddies that I disliked in Bioshock, but almost everything regarding gameplay,)

But yes, as for the Patapon bosses, I think it's safe to consider them objective grinds. If it were possible to progress through the whole game by way of pure skill, that wouldn't be the case, but apparently there's a point in the game in which "skill" still isn't enough. That's a game concept I take issue with, but I fear that a whole other discussion topic...

P.S. Thanks for the response, I really appreciate it.

Ok, I'm too lazy to write an entire post (actually, mostly too busy) so instead, I'll cover my ass the time-poor man's way, with a link to <a href="http://graffitigamer.com/?p=93">my review of Patapon</a>. In the review, I note that one of the ways Patapon forces you to connect with some of your more powerful troops is because it takes so much effort to get there.

Unlike World of Warcraft, which offers you better equipment for grinding, Patapon rewards you with a being to control, an entity it's your responsibility to look after. If you could simply build an army in no time, you wouldn't have a connection with the Rarepon and your tribe. If you don't connect with them, then what's the point in playing?

In the review, I liken Patapon to a Tamagotchi, you're essentially raising this tribe like a child. Taking care of it's needs and ensuring it's survival. Isn't life, really, just a grind?

@N'Gai Croal:

Gah, Jonathan Blow.  Not my night for names.  Anyways I totally agree on traveling mode.  I played the game with a few non-gamers and the one guy took a few play throughs before he could do bass guitar on easy without dying more than twice and thus ending the song.

@StephenTotilo: For MMORPGs I think it's important to note that social gameplay is a key mitigating factor.  One Jonathon Blow missed when he basically dismissed the genre as giving the players nothing fo value.  I know my girlfriend mostly only enjoys the grind (in FFXI) because she has a group of friends she regularly works with.  Not sure what percentage of MMORPGers the mostly social are though.  That said, I have no idea what percentage of MMORPGers are mostly doing it to hang with friends.

That said, I avoid MMORPGs like the plague, so most of my insight is second hand.

I think the word itself - grind - suggests a negative experience, doesn't it? The term is used in sports as well to describe a player (usually a golfer or baseball pitcher) who doesn't have his A-game, so he's grinding as hard as he can to get the job done. I've heard Tiger Woods use the word when he shoots a decent score, but he's not happy with his swing, e.g. "I was really grinding out there today."

Sorry for the lexicon detour, but I think "grind" is a fairly loaded word, and I wonder if gamers would describe their experience in that way...even if we might agree they are grinders. :-)

So, here's another way of dealing with grind taken from MLB 08 The Show.  My team is up by ten runs in the 2nd inning, so I've probably got the game won. Rather than slogging through seven innings of pitching and hitting to record my win and record my stats (if I'm playing Road the the Show mode, I'm basically leveling up my player) I can skip the grind and fast forward the game to the 9th inning. I reap the rewards without having to slog through to a foregone conclusion.

I think this kind of "fast forward" mechanic could be built into certain games. Not every title would benefit from it (Patapon, for example), and not every player would use it, but it could be nice to have as an earned option.

A lot of ground has already been covered here, so I'll try not to repeat what's already been said.

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First off, I disagree with Totilo's definition of grind. This has already been somewhat covered, but I suppose I'll propose my own argument using Mass Effect.

The core game is only about 8 or so hours long, by core game, I mean playing purely the story missions. But when you dollop on top of that, all of the side-quest/planets (for lack of a better term), it inflates the gameplay time to about 40-50 hours, and yes, my first play through involved every planet and every side quest. Which is pretty typical for a 'core' RPG player (See: OCD).

That is where I draw the distinction between repetition and grind, the story missions and the optional side-planets, respectively. All that extraneous content could have easily been cut from the game, with zero effect to the core story, which is what they should have done, but since they didn't, it took away from the game. That sort of content is what I like to call "Black Hole Gameplay", it does nothing but suck time, and your soul.

Addendum: I don't technically consider the side-planets in Mass Effect as "side-quests" per se. To clarify, the side-quests the the Citadel, THOSE are side-quests, the extra planets however, are decidedly lesser. With the main story arc being primary, Citadel quest being secondary, I consider the planets to be tertiary.

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By that somewhat clear distinction between grind and simply repetitive gameplay, what does that mean for other games mentioned.

God of War - I haven't played the second game, nor the PSP one, so I can't comment for those, but if memory serves me correctly, you were always decidedly moving forward, and never backtracking. This brings up another question that I'll propose later.

The collection of orbs in order to advance is something that isn't necessarily 'forced' upon you, there's a distinction between it being forced, and it simply being naturally integrated. The act of collecting orbs and killing monsters isn't something that's mutually exclusive, the two are one in the same. Granted there are ways to gather orbs that aren't done via killing, such as the various "mini-games" (*wink wink nudge nudge*), but again none of them are forced upon the player.

I can't speak for other people, but I never reached a point in which I thought, "Oh damn this boss is too tough, I should go back to previous rooms and grind orbs".

As for my previously foreshadowed question, this brings to light the issue of backtracking, and whether it's considered gameplay or a grind. I propose the Metroid games, which are notorious for their backtracking. One could argue that their backtracking portions are considered a grind, but would that branding be avoided if they simply made a separate room for some key, as opposed to reusing an old room visited prior?

I'll await your response, if you'll have me, but also because I'm still thinking on the question myself.

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Patapon - I think we're all in agreement that the bosses (exterior to the core story) are grinds, regardless of the enjoyment wrought from it. I may not have specified earlier, but I disagree with the sentiment that a grind is not a grind if you enjoy it. If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, then it must be a duck. Hey, I like Peking Duck as much as the next person but... uhh, ok, I lost my train of thought...

Kidding aside, this somewhat brings me back to Mass Effect, or at least RPG's in general, and I may have inadvertently contradicted myself. This begs the question of whether side-quests in general can be considered grinds. I say that they don't, but I haven't formed a compelling reason as to why, yet.

Certainly, disregarding the OCD nature of RPG gamers, side-quests ARE optional, so why SHOULDN'T they be considered grinds. I enjoy most side-quests in RPG's, but that isn't a compelling enough reason for them to avoid the branding of grind. Inversely, though its almost never been the case, if I dislike the side-quests, I still don't consider them "grinds", by simple nature of them being optional.

Again, this begs another question (Sheesh, call me Shoeless Joe, I'm doing a lot of begging), referencing my addendum to my Mass Effect comment, do I (or any of you) consider the side-bosses in Patapon primary, secondary or tertiary?

For me: Well, a little from column A, a little from column C. If they weren't primary in function, i.e. you NEED to do them for the rare items/Ka-Ching, I would consider them tertiary, in that if they weren't necessary, I would probably skip them altogether. OK, that's not entirely true, but I would have enjoyed the bosses in Patapon a lot more if I only had to fight them once.

I haven't felt the strong effects of "diminishing returns" this much since the Little Sisters in Bioshock. The first LS redemption was compelling, the tenth one... not so much.

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OK, I think I've written enough. A reply would be much appreciated, even if it was just "TLDR!"

@N'Gai,

So the 9 million who play "WoW" and don't mind the grind/scheduled-rewards are wrong? You said yourself in your own letter that more varied music would make the repetition in "Patapon" more tolerable. You weren't purely ant-grind above, so why so anti-grind here below?

@N'Gai and Stephen

On N'Gai Croal's comments, heh and I quite agree, particularly on the Rock Band stuff.

As for Stephen Totilo's comments, your characterization is reductive as you say, but it's also worth engaging.

I think without the unlockables only games with terrific core gameplay would really be that enjoyable.  In one sense that's definitely a good thing.  I agree with your point in the above article that the Final Fantasy strategy of mitigating grind with cut scenes has been tolerated for too long.

On the other hand, unlockables are fun.  I think Andrew Blow (who I learned about through you guys) is right that "scheduled rewards" can be problematic, but rewards for beating something better or beating a slightly different challenge seem fair enough for me.

So I'd say removing all extraneous elements is a bit extreme.  It can work in some cases, but not every game is going to be Tetris or Portal.  However, it's a challenge worth thinking about.  Maybe gaming proof of concepts should be done with no extraneous elements.  If the core mechanic isn't good enough to be exciting for a brief demo, maybe that's a game that should be left on the drawing board.

@N'Gai and Greg:

So Ratchet gamers don't have grinds? Or they've just found ways to make grinds more tolerable? Methinks it's the latter.

Interesting that in GregSanders' response, the implication is that "Tetris" avoids being a grind by NOT having unlockables. Allow me to be intentionally reductive/annoying. Consider what he's saying in the following skewed manner: games can avoid the grind problem by omitting extraneous elements. Less unlockables = less risk of a grind. Are we all on board for that? Maybe we should be!

As an ex WOW player, the grind in Patapon is a pleasure.  The hunting levels last two minutes, and the boss fights last six minutes, compare that too an MMO grind which turns minutes into hours, Patapon is a joy.  I may have fallen into utter love of Patapon, not just with the art design, but the game design as well. I am about to hit forty hours, the last time I played a game for forty hours, was Oblivion and COD 4 Multiplayer.  The quick sessions, re-learning the boss encounters, and trying different patapons with other weapons, pleases my need of tinkering with my army.  

It seems like the definition of grinding can be loosely applied, all sports game could be considered grinding, since you are advancing, with the gameplay staying the same, and you are grinding to get to first place in either a seasonal, master, or an online mode.  Jersey unlockables, numerious items, keeps players grinding for these items, but sports games are not a grind.  We keep coming back cause we enjoy it, if we did not, it would be considered a grind.

Juan

Agh!  Sorry in my last comment.  Replace Tolito with Totilo.

And feel free to call me GreggSaunders or something.  I've earned it.

@stephentolito: Also, thanks for the reply and the excellent question.  Vs. Mode is currently my favorite set of commentary on gaming out there.  You guys really team up well and find interesting points to pick at in each others arguments.

Hmm.. also html tags don't seem to work in comments.  I'll have to remember that for the future.

Fair question.  I'd say yes.  Testris is a grind.  There's some new songs and pictures but it gets pretty close to pure grind.  Similarly, the difficulty level changes don't really introduce that much new content, mostly a matter of things getting faster and sometimes tougher starting conditions.

Is that a problem?  No, I'll give you that one.

I'd say it isn't a problem because it doesn't use grinding as a gateway to advancement/new content.  There really is no advancement/new content available.  What changes over time is your skill level.  I think that's a fine form of gaming, but one for which the concept of grind isn't really relevant.

It sounds like the concept of advancement is relevant to Patapon though.  There are later levels and beating certain sections of the game requires leveling your characters, not just increasing your personal skill level.

So basically, if there's not really advancement/new content, you aren't required to do repetition.  You're coming back because you want to enjoy a level or because you want to improve your skills.  There's nothing wrong with people doing that.  I think you're dead on right when it comes to your points about brain age.  Repetition can be a lot of fun if you're upping your skills and you can do it in short bursts.  But you're repeating because you are playing that level for the sake of having fun or learning, not for the sake of getting to future content.

So what would grinding in Tetris be?  Well, if you had to say play for twenty minutes of easy levels to get to the difficulty level you desired.  That would be lame.  Some versions of tetris may have that problem, but the fact that skilled players can go through levels <i>much</i> faster mitigates it.

@GregSanders

Based on your definitions, is "Tetris" a grind? And if it is, is the grinding in it a problem? Why or why not?

I disagree with Stephen Totilo's defense of grinding.  

<blockquote>Except: it's all subjective, isn't it? Where is that line between fun repetition and grinding? Why don't God of War games get accused of forcing a grind? Because they don't? Oh, surely, they do. They require collecting orbs to get powers, some of which you need to advance. Does God of War get off because they just don't do it forcefully enough that it's bothersome?</blockquote>

The difference is straightforward.  Pure grinding is <b>requiring</b> repetitive game play <b>without offering new content</b>.  This might mean repeating the same missions to get more resources or having to backtrack through unchanged maps.

The subjective part comes in when considering when the new content isn't that inspiring.  For example palette shifted enemies or unoriginal maps.  However, while I haven't played Patapon, it sounds like advancement required repeating levels with no new content, and thus it falls into pure grind.

I have played God of War and while it was repetitive at times, there wasn't that much backtracking into areas with respawned enemies and you could advance further by doing exploration side-quests, which isn't the same as fighting the same guys in the same room.  

I'm not a Devil May Cry player, but I can concede that Rockband has partial grinding.  You repeat the same song, but you do get a new venue to play it in.  In addition, World Tour does try to steadily force up your difficulty settings, and in this a song at a new difficulty does provide new notes to play, they don't just up the penalty for failure or decrease the length of Overdrive or something.  That said, I think there's room for legitimate debate about whether there's enough new content.