It's worth remembering that the things that any of us want in a game doesn't actually make it good (or bad). It's why it's important to separate our favorite games from what we think are the best games. It's especially worth remembering that to a fan of GSG games, what makes a good (or enjoyable) GSG styled game is extremely different from what makes a good game to new players or a good GSG in the abstract.
Something you should apply to yourself. I suspect you are too deafened by your own internal monologue to realize that you have no qualifications nor basis for argument for the assertions you are making. You are not a game designer, and as much as you would like to present yourself as the impartial, objective proponent of good game design, you continue to assert things as true, without evidence that they are.
In game design the 'closed experience' is a hugely important part of how you teach players systems and how you hook people on your game.
This simply isn't a true as phrased, and it absolutely isn't true on the scale we are talking about. There is a lot of research and different ideas about how one hooks a player into a game, and popular theories have changed over time, over genres, over the advent of MMOs and mobile games, etc. There isn't a consensus, but there's a lot of shared research which supports short reward cycles. But instead of just asserting design knowledge, here's an article on the very subject, which
should clear up your confusion about what game designers mean when they talk about 'concrete goals' in games;
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/166972/cognitive_flow_the_psychology_of_.php?print=1
Microsoft Studios user experience researcher Sean Baron:
"Concrete goals with manageable rules are achievable.The act of achieving goals is rewarding and reinforces actions that allow individuals to continue completing goals. Whether it's leveling your character or earning points for head-shots, the very act of accomplishing something reinforces your desire to keep accomplishing. This goal-achievement-reward cycle can keep gamers glued to a game and facilitates Flow states."
It's closer to learning theory than game theory itself (I mean mathematical game theory, not game design). Myself, being a psychology major, have long been interested in what makes people play games. There are different reasons and no one-size-fits-all solution, because all games are different. But the ending of Civilization is not what generates the 'one more turn' phenomenon that so many strategy game designers attempt to achieve, it is the discreet cycle where the player performs an action, receives feedback, and is rewarded by the process.
According to the research, you do not 'hook' a player over a playing period of many hours and multiple sessions. It makes no sense at all to say that a player is only 'hooked' when their game has ended. That goes against all common and design sense. Players are hooked by a discreet cycle of learning, feedback, and reward. When designers talk about 'goals' they mean discreet goals, like leveling up, getting a new technology, a pop-up telling them they've built a Wonder. One of the really powerful designs that Civilization stumbled onto was that (almost) every time you press that End Turn button, you are not only rewarded for your actions in the previous turns by the game telling what buildings have been built, if you've developed a technology, if your borders have expanded, etc, but it also pushes you right back into the cycle of starting a new construction, starting a new tech research, building a new tile improvement, etc. It is hard to break the cycle of getting to the end of the turn, wanting to press End Turn to get that discreet reward, and that End Turn reward primes you to continue the cycle.
That is the goal completion cycle. That is how you hook players. It is in no way extrapolated to an end-game state, unless you are talking about very, very brief games (Flappy Bird, etc). Not games where a single playthrough can lasts dozens of hours. I challenge you to find anything in the literature that supports your assertions. I am very interested to see what you can dig up, because there is a metric ton of research and articles to support what I wrote above.
Everything after what I quoted is so obviously either your personal opinion asserted as design knowledge, or is based on what I assume is a misinterpretation of something you heard once about concrete goals being useful in game design, that I am not going to bother quoting and responding to it.
Instead, let's break down the argument into its pieces, from what I have gathered:
Side Endless: We want the game to be designed such that all of its systems and mechanics provide interesting and satisfying play in endless mode. We don't want victory conditions to impact how the AI behaves or what is considered to be 'correct' play, because we want to be able to define our own criteria for success. In order for that to work, the AI needs to respond to our actions in a way that is divorced from the notion of winning a 'game.' Otherwise, the AI will actively interrupt our play by taking actions which are inconsistent with rational, survival-oriented people.
Side Victory: We want the game to include ways for us to define a longterm goal that we can work toward, which will provide overall feedback about out progress, success, or failure to meet that goal. We feel like this provides a better contained experience, particularly in the case of multiplayer where people may want to compare results, or at least to give them a reason to directly compete and promote conflict.
Side Default: We want the game to be designed with victory conditions in mind as a default, because we are convinced that in order for the game to be successful, it needs to be packaged in a way which presents a closed experience to new players. (Feel free to redefine this, I just can't find much else that is coherent)
Side Endless and Side Victory are not at odds with each other. We had mostly come to an agreement that Victory Conditions and Endless could co-exist as long as the mechanics of the game were not dependent on victory conditions. If the AI is operating as if victory conditions are a primary motivating goal, Endless play would be corrupted by AI who are trying to 'win' a game (and prevent the player from winning) rather than surviving and prospering in other ways. Behavior that the AI, in previous Paradox Titles, did not have. Because there are no victory conditions in most of their titles. There is an end-point, but the AI is oblivious of it. This is one small but key feature of Paradox titles that differentiates it from other games in the genre: the AI doesn't act like this is a boardgame and they can ignore consequences as long as they come out on top in the end. I can't say the same of Endless Space, where it's literally written into the Diplomacy, right there in your face: Negative modifier to relations
because your score is too high.
Side Default wants to define the game above and beyond the modes of play, in a way that implies very strongly that the Endless game will be handicapped as a result. Because if that isn't what you're arguing, then you are literally arguing about which box is ticked when you open the 'Start a New Campaign' button. And if I wasted this much time arguing with you about that, I will be very upset.
So I pray you're just
accidentally destructive.
