Complex Systems in Video Games : a literature survey

Abstract: The idea that emergent content generation for video games will add depth to the gameplay experience is something often mentioned. With this article I want to make a connection between the science of complex systems and emergence, and the area of video game research and development. Not only does emergent content generation add depth to gameplay experience, it would also reduce the stress on developers, if diverse content could be generated automatically. I have conducted a keyword search on 412 articles from renown conferences with the following keywords: complex system", "emerg", and "spontaneous". The results show that while emergence is quite popular in the fi eld of video game research, complex system as a term is not.