Patterns - The key to game amusement studies

Studies of digital games bridge the gap from game design and technology to the impact of play, thus, being highly interdisciplinary by nature. The scientific discourse is difficult. Pattern is a key term used with largely varying semantics in mind and, even worse, sometimes without any precise meaning. Patterns are general and somehow abstract phenomena that do not show directly, but occur implicitly by means of their instances. Within knowledge processing in studies of game play and its impact, it is decisive to observe instances and to deduce patterns. By its very nature, this is learning from incomplete information. To avoid speculative guesses, studies of learning necessarily need to be based on precise concepts of what to learn and how to learn. The present paper investigates lucid concepts of patterns and their instances, addresses the crucial problem of learning patterns, and illustrates the deployment of a sound theory in practical studies.