What are Cooperative Games?
What are Cooperative Games?
What are Cooperative Games?
Most people are introduced through games as an activity that ends in a win state. A condition where, if met, results in completing the game. Usually this is accomplished against at least one opponent (if not many) who is trying to accomplish the same thing.
This is the framework for many competitive games. But, what if you had no other opponent to play against; and instead had other teammates to work with to “defeat the game?”
This is how many players are introduced to cooperative games. This article will explore them in depth. It’ll start by defining cooperative games and provide a history and philosophy of their origin, design, and proliferation.
Different characteristics of cooperative games will be listed and discussed as well as how they fit within the overall philosophy of “play.” Cooperative games will be compared against competitive games and criticisms of competitive games will be discussed as they relate to both the player experience and the overall framework of cooperation.
Communication often plays a factor in many cooperative games; so that aspect will be discussed in addition to applications of cooperative games. Those include positive social benefits of cooperative play as well as the use of cooperative games for teaching and learning.
Cooperative games are not a neatly defined category. Therefore “hybrid” styles of cooperative games will be covered and discussed that include semi-cooperative games, traitor games, and collaborative games. Many cooperative games are structured so that an “alpha” player emerges and can often dominate the activity. These players will be covered as well as some design directions and considerations for cooperative games. This article will close on some of the more lasting positive benefits of cooperative play.
What are Cooperative Games?
Simply put, cooperative games are experiences where all players share a common goal and win (or lose) the game together as a single team. This means that a single player may make individual contributions towards the “win state” for the game, but ultimately the group of players will either win or lose together. Popular examples of cooperative tabletop games include Pandemic, Horrified, Spirit island, and Hanabi.
Because all players must achieve the win state together (or lose), they must cooperate and work with one another towards achieving this shared objective. Many players who have never played cooperative games before see this in stark contrast to a group of players who must normally compete against one another to win.
This overall framework applies to games in different mediums inclusive of tabletop and video games. All formats require players to work with one another to achieve the shared goal of mutual victory. In both digital and non-digital formats this often encompasses working against computer-controlled opponents or the game itself to win.
As a result, players must often share resources through pooled economies; discovery of in-game items; or other components that they apply to achieve a win game state.
History of Cooperative Games
As discussed, cooperative games exist across different modalities and are part of a longer and larger lineage of inclusive cultural traditions and emerging formats (such as virtual and augmented reality). Such modalities indicate that cooperation with one another isn’t just new; but is valued amongst cooperative game players.
Interestingly, early cooperative game designs were used by educators and teachers to model collaboration. This extends to the forerunner (and perhaps one of the most recognized and popular board games of all time) The Landlord’s Game which evolved into Monopoly. The earliest iteration of this game was a cooperative format which sharply contrasts its competitive nature today.
Early video game and arcade game titles of the 1970’s-80’s pioneered cooperative multiplayer games which encouraged players to spend money at the same time on the same machine. This later evolved into new video game options of the 1980’s with the “beat’em up” genre which became an established and accepted standard of game play that helped to grow the genre.
Further development of cooperative games occurred during this period aided by Jim Deacove’s Family Pastimes, whose sale and development of cooperative games helped establish a formal cooperative board game genre in the 1970’s.
The 1990’s ushered in new formats of cooperative games that encouraged collaboration against escalating threats; and served as the basis for the development of modern cooperative games. These came into the mainstream in the 2000’s with games like Lord of the Rings, and culminated in some of the largest and most popular board games of the modern renaissance like Pandemic and Space Alert.
Philosophy of Cooperative Games
Cooperative games, like other games, are defined by many of the same characteristics including rules, choice, and specific outcomes. However, unlike other competitive games, their win state is defined by an outcome achieved together. By extension, cooperative game theory studies situations where players work together to create “binding coalitions.” You might also call them alliances or teams, but they are otherwise connected and enforced through “contracts” or agreements with one another.
In non-economic terms, these may also refer to the “magic circle” of game play where other players must agree and accept to play the game. However, in the case of cooperative games, they are working with each other as a tacit part of this agreement.
Like other competitive games, cooperative games (for the most part) include stable alliances or agreements. This means that player choices are reliable and durable and that through their dedication and effort they will be able to coordinate their choices and share rewards with one another rather than threaten or deceive each other in competitive orthogames. This is the hallmark of cooperative games.
Interestingly, cooperative games are often a difficult framework to adhere to for players used to playing only competitive games. As exposure to only these kinds of games makes the process of competition through gameplay a decidedly learned cultural activity. Cooperative games differ from this, not by separating all players into winners and losers; but by identifying ALL players as having won or lost within the context of the game’s parameters.
It’s with this in mind that the differing (and sometimes challenging aspects of cooperative games) makes it difficult to play, as the kind of competitive social outcomes have been ingrained in many players. However, some of the characteristics of cooperative games can make them highly engaging, impactful, and joyful for players who choose to play them.
Characteristics of Cooperative Games
Overall, cooperative games are distinct from other similar types of games (i.e. team games) as no other player-character or human opponent exists. Rather, success is entirely dependent on players cooperating with one another. This forms the very dynamic of many cooperative games summarized as “us versus the game,” where players must pool together their knowledge, resources, and skills in order to overcome the challenge. Therefore, one of the most compelling characteristics of cooperative games is that there is no individual victor. Everyone either wins together or loses together.
This means that cooperative games are built almost entirely on teamwork. It means that the synergy achieved by the efforts of the many should overcome the limitations of the individual to achieve success. This success is often accomplished by navigating the game’s challenges such as surmounting shared goals, solving shared puzzles, consuming limited resources, and exploiting synergies to players’ greatest advantage.
These resources are often pitted against what the game has to offer; and those vary widely from random challenges and generated obstacles of enemies and opponents; to events (planned and un-planned) that permeate the game’s landscape.
Despite this, the main challenge is that cooperative players pit everyone together against the shared goal. Thus, making cooperative games more palatable for players from different backgrounds and abilities as they can pool their greatest assets and mitigate their liabilities to defeat the game itself.
Play and Games
The characteristics of cooperative games link them closely to play itself. That’s because play has no inherent winners and losers; and that competition itself largely contradicts the ideas of play. Pure play is focused on the activity, its process, and actions, and not necessarily its outcomes.
Play is an important aspect to development and is a central part of childhood learning. Therefore, cooperative play can serve as a powerful instructional tool for teaching and learning. Cooperative games can aid in this as adults (or more experienced players) can coach and support others freely because doing so doesn’t (necessarily) impede the game’s fairness.
This means that cooperative games and pure play are closely aligned with one another as all players can share goals, succeed together and focus on the process of play and fun rather than on competition against one another.
Cooperative Games Versus Competitive Games
We’ve addressed the existence of both cooperative games and their (better known counterpart) competitive games. The differences between both can be summed up concisely by stating that cooperative games include players working with each other to achieve a win state whereas competitive games pit players against each other to achieve the same end.
However, much is left unsaid with aspects of competition deeply embedded into games that are linked closely to play. Such a close relationship can influence young players into seeing other people as obstacles to personal success – rather than individuals they can cooperate with. Examining many games from childhood are indicative of that; and are pervasive enough that cooperation may only be seen as a strategy to defeat someone else.
Despite this, the structural differences between cooperative games and competitive games make them not so dissimilar. In that having shared goals – can be just as fun and engaging as competing against one another. This is perhaps best evident in highly competitive systems (such as job markets) where someone’s gain often comes at the loss of someone else. Therefore, renewed interest can be seen in people seeking more collaboration over the cut-throat nature of zero-sum competition.
This can be observed in cooperative board games as an expanding category that replaces confrontation with collaboration and therefore subsumes the individual competitive nature with a group cooperative one. And this expansion has been a welcome change where cooperating with other players prioritizes relationship building, and communication, as well as group normative behaviors.
Criticisms of Competitive Games
This comparison between cooperative games and competitive ones also expands into specific criticisms against them. Competitive games often play a defining role in childhood gameplay where cooperation sometimes (rarely) emerges on its own. Not necessarily because children don’t want to cooperate with one another; but rather because they do not often get the opportunity to do so.
Perhaps there is no better childhood game where this competitive structure is the case than with musical chairs. For those unfamiliar with the game, a number of players are identified and several chairs are provided (at exactly one less than the number of players). Music is played and players circle the chairs until the music stops and everyone must find a seat. The result is there is always a player eliminated. The game then goes on with one fewer chair until there is only one victor left.
Such a game promotes competition and elimination as a primary objective which normalizes this behavior and disconnects its players from empathy between each other and the fun of cooperation. The results of which can include humiliation, rejection, and fear of failure for its players.
Cooperative Games as Shared Experiences
These results provide good insight into what could be when cooperative games are leveraged as vehicles for creating shared experiences. This often begins with supporting one of the core facets of games which is the voluntary agreement to play. Cooperative games promote that as an experience where everyone works together to achieve this end.
One of the most becoming kinds of cooperative games are embodied with tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons where the ultimate outcome is the experience and fun for players rather than victory over other players. These dungeon crawl cooperative experiences often lean into the fantasy adventure genre, and promote hero progression, challenges against monsters and non-player characters, gathering loot, and tactical battles which are orchestrated by cooperating players themselves.
Game structures and narratives such as this help normalize collaborative play with one another which prioritizes the cooperative experience rather than the victory conditions of competitive games. Tabletop role-playing games are pervasive and evolve over multiple play sessions and help create an evocative and enduring world for players to experience and explore.
Such is the success of these kinds of table-top experiences that have grown and evolved into large massively multiplayer online role-playing games where an incredible number of players from across the world interact, engage, and play with each other in collaborative and coordinated parties and organizations.
Communication in Cooperative Games
Like many games, cooperative games include some kind of communication. However, the way, type, and volume of this kind of communication often play a hand in how many games are played – and this is no different with cooperative games.
In terms of cooperative game theory, communication and sharing are required between players since they must know each other’s goals, needs, and objectives to cooperate effectively. However, for many commercial games designed for entertainment, enjoyment, and experience, this level of communication is often limited or obfuscated.
This limited or lack of communication in many of these commercial cooperative games makes it so that silence and interference are part of the challenge of working with and synergizing with one another. Teamwork is often a critical component of success in these games; but gaining full information makes it a worthwhile challenge.
These can be most clearly seen in the table top games Hanabi and The Mind where limited communication or lack of communication are core dynamics of game play. This is where shrewd decision making and deductive reasoning play a part in achieving success.
Applications of Cooperative Games
It’s challenges such as the lack of clear communication between players and parties that form some of the most interesting and applicable challenges for applied cooperative games. This allows them to be used as tools for building teamwork, promoting empathy, and prioritizing collaborative problem solving rather than the rivalry and exclusion of competitive games.
Perhaps one of the best received facets of cooperative games is that they offer a hands-on approach and experiential solidarity in play and community. This is reflected in a sense of “all players being together,” and working with each other against the problem rather than against one another. A framework that challenges often accepted norms of competitive games that require players to be in contention.
It’s this framework that closely parallels applied games for teaching and learning as collaborative mechanics combined with scaffolded play, active debriefing, and connection to uses outside of the learning environment truly demonstrate some positive applications for cooperative games.
The result of this is that cooperative games applied for serious outcomes provide a different vision for a future where collective cooperation represents a more substantial win than any individual achievement.
Social Benefits of Cooperative Games
One of the most prevalent applications of cooperative games is the social benefit and good of its players. Cooperative games require a more inclusive structure where all players are poised to contribute towards the end goal. This is because selfish play is not rewarding as any actions which do not serve the common goal are not useful. The best cooperative games therefore give players meaningful autonomy to contribute with their peers in pursuit of a common win condition.
This kind of interactive and interconnected framework for cooperation requires a certain degree of social skills which embodies emotional growth and a collaborative classroom climate as opposed to one that focuses only on competitive outcomes. However, this doesn’t make cooperative games easy as they can be designed and adapted to offer skill building challenges while emphasizing collective contributions without highlighting individual shortcomings.
As was stated before, the requirement for limited or restrained communication makes it so that many cooperative games require a different level and approach to teamwork and synergy to achieve the common goal. This results in a positive social framework between players that includes mutual support, collective success, and belonging.
The ultimate social result of which is that shared success is part of a shared celebration, thereby, promoting and building inclusive habits amongst players.
Cooperative Games for Learning
Cooperative games are also useful tools for learning as they can serve as a hands-on and experiential learning experience that prioritize teamwork and collaboration over competition. This approach is germane with meaning making and development among students as they must work together to make sense of ideas and concepts rather than competing against one another for grades.
Often, the biggest benefits from applying cooperative games for learning is by integrating learners into heterogeneous groups with mixed and diverse backgrounds that take responsibility for their own learning and their peers’ progress. This is perhaps the ideal case for games-based learning used in cooperative formats whereby learning behaviors are strengthened and positive outcomes are maximized.
By using cooperative games for learning, students also become socialized for interdependent relationship development that prioritizes their ability to stay patient; avoid reckless play and trust teammates to serve the common goal. These outcomes can be achieved in educational as well as corporate training environments as cooperative games help keep everyone aligned towards achieving the goal.
This is because cooperative games create shared agency that manifests itself in both social and cognitive learning as individuals interact, negotiate, and communicate with one another in ways that regulate frustration but, help move everyone else towards the common goal.
Hybrid Cooperative Games
This article has covered “pure” cooperative games where all players must coordinate their actions with one another to achieve the common goal of winning together against the challenges of the game. However, the hybrid versions of cooperative games exist which slightly skew how these games operate. These hybrid games sometimes include additional feature such as personal objectives; one-versus-many structures, as well as the use of “traitors” which add a layer of deception to play.
Furthermore, these additional features also include different formats in which the game is played that range from complete open-information cooperative games to real-time games, and “campaign” or “legacy” games that evolve and change over time. These can even include a variety of negotiation elements that offer players a means of selectively cooperating with one another in pursuit of personal objectives.
Some of this hybrid approach to cooperative gameplay originates from wargames as some opportunities may exist where more can be achieved by cooperating with other entities rather than pursuing them alone or against other players.
Likewise, hybrid digital cooperative games can be entirely location based such as with “couch-co-ops,” or played remotely online. All these options offer different and flexible ways in which players can interact with one another. However, these interactive choices could also extend to include conferencing platforms like Zoom an Microsoft Teams which provides features like breakout rooms that allow cooperation over a medium that does not already exist within the game.
Semi-Cooperative Games
As discussed, semi-cooperative games exist where there are elements of cooperation; but players are not always pursuing a single pervasive goal. These semi-cooperative games may add some kind of “betrayal” from another player secretly working against the rest of the team; or asymmetric roles where certain players know (or do not know) information about the game state or other roles.
Both of these characteristics form the basis of one-versus-many structures where some games include a player controlling an opposing force or opposition in the game rather than the game system itself. In these semi-cooperative games, players must sometime work with one another in order to avoid a mutual loss; or are structured in a way that only allows a specific subset of players to win. Examples of games that employ this semi-cooperative structure include Dead of Winter, Between Two Cities, H.M.S. Dolores, and Sol: Last Days of a Star.
These semi-cooperative game structures usually include some kind of hidden motives or opposition that blend a degree of cooperation with the opportunity for betrayal or adversarial play. As a result, these kinds of games may declare a single winner (as opposed to an entire team) as the role of “traitor” characters inject a form of hidden competition into gameplay.
Traitor Games
Cooperative games were defined as not “team games” as they include all players playing with each other against the game. Pure cooperative games are also different from “traitor games,” where hidden opponents may exist. These kinds of games provide an interesting twist on the cooperative genre; by gaining the trust of all players (at least in the beginning) to work with one another until at some point (either during or at the end of the game), the “traitor” is revealed as someone that was working against the rest of the players.
This sub-genre of cooperative games can provide a more interesting game dynamic as the traitor(s) may be drastically stronger than the rest of the players; possess some unique information; or a combination of both which creates interesting tension and uncertainty through play. This level paranoia and deceptive play combined with hidden objectives and shifting allegiances often undermine unified goals of players. The effects can include a broad spectrum of shifts in the game dynamic from dramatic reveal to personal betrayal.
Despite this, some players value, seek, and continue to play traitor style cooperative games as they blend a familiar and welcome structure of cooperative play with suspicion and tension embodied in the motives of hidden opponents. All of which (sometimes) feeds into a negative aspect of cooperative play: the alpha gamer.
The Alpha Player
The “alpha” player is sometime the unfortunate side effect of cooperative play. They often represent a player whose dominant voice can turn what is effectively a team-based activity into a one-person show. This is the player who emerges as the individual who dictates actions to other players, removing and reducing their agency, and weakens the overall collaborative nature of cooperative play and the fun accompanying it.
Much of these negative effects from alpha gamers can be mitigated through peer feedback and ground rules for engagement and play. However, designers may also mitigate the kind of impact that alpha players – or “quarterbacking,” can have on games by addressing it through different features. These include the use of hidden information, application of time pressure, the inclusion of unique character abilities, or otherwise further restricting communication between players.
However, sometimes the best way to mitigate the negative impact that these players can have on the game is to twist the genre further from purely cooperative play into a more collaborative framework.
Collaborative Games
Many may be tempted to use the terms “cooperative” and “collaborative” interchangeably. But they are slightly different in their approaches to game play as their uses for teaching and learning. Cooperative learning divides work between players and parties, whereas collaborative play involves co-creation between parties.
In terms of gameplay, pure cooperative play includes the shared win loss of the game state at the conclusion of the game. Semi-cooperative games on the other hand include the same outcome; but may also include some mixed motives by individual players (or traitors). Conversely, collaborative play include some kind of shared engagement (as in alliances or allegiances) but does not necessarily include a shared victory condition.
Collaborative games provide a more competitive “cousin” to cooperative games as they may often involve some kind of deal-making or alliance building in the pursuit of individual outcomes through leveraging relationships with other players. This is usually seen in negotiation, diplomatic, or conflict situations where there are some aspects for joint decision making in the pursuit of individual goals rather than merely aligning common goals.
Design of Cooperative Games
Designing cooperative games is interesting, because there is no need to create an adversarial framework between players since they must all work with each other. Instead, many of the difficulties of designing cooperative games are focused on meaningful challenges and experiences that prioritize a socially connected experience.
Therefore, one of the primary considerations for designing cooperative games are the kinds of challenges that the game generates and allows players to collectively work against it. These can work with many themes and have included mitigating the spread of diseases; controlling the impact of disasters; as well as fighting against the game’s villains and monsters which are usually controlled by a certain degree of randomness.
Despite these challenges, good cooperative games require some kind of meaningful challenge; adaptability; and modularity; to prevent them from becoming solvable puzzles. The best cooperative games require making the system slightly unpredictable so that players must always find the task of planning, adapting, and reacting to the game challenging.
These design considerations are perhaps best embodied in cooperative board games that rely on randomness generated from shuffled cards; rolled dice; and modular boards that create a sense of drama between players and ensure that no two play sessions are exactly the same. Though, there are the added considerations of the upkeep and bookkeeping associated with tabletop games to ensure that the system continues functioning and moving along. These are usually handled automatically through the use of event cards; timers; and threat escalation; that are controlled through game design dynamics and mechanics rather than through players themselves.
One of the most common ways that cooperative tabletop games address this series of randomness and escalating dangers is by using prevalent hazards such as fire spreading; disease outbreaks; or monsters multiplying. The chaotic results of which force players to manage these crises in a prioritized order. This is usually done in concert with some kind of artificial timer that are either literal or abstract in the forms of dwindling decks; tracks; and rounds that could spell defeat for players if they fall too far behind.
The difficulty of this is multiplied with real-time cooperative games which add additional pressure by forcing players into the constraint of a timer. Such a framework usually includes some kind of simultaneous decision-making pushing players into a frenzy of frantic teamwork.
Despite these more complex considerations, pure cooperative games still rely on their hallmark characteristics of having only one win condition: winning together. This is compared against the challenges of the game which always demand a balance between emergencies and progress.
This focus in player balance is also enigmatic in design considerations as the randomness of the game, hidden information, and variable setups make it so that are (ideally) no sure-fire ways to solve every cooperative crisis. And since some of the best cooperative games include a level of difficulty adjustment – designers should think about ways of bolstering failing players while challenging the more successful ones.
Such a setup can be seen in the cooperative tabletop game The Gang where players create poker hands and must resolve them in order from weakest to strongest by communicating their perceived strength through tokens. Successful rounds result in additional challenges for the players; while failed rounds include some kind of “crutch” to help the group succeed on following rounds.
This is representative of the role of “difficulty” of cooperative games; and is a factor that can be adjusted with more nuance compared to competitive games which require greater input from players themselves.
Lasting Benefits of Cooperative Games
This article discussed cooperative games, their structures, challenges, and the overall impact on the player experience. Because of the combination of all of this, cooperative games possess some clear strengths as they require a level of advanced communication; synergy through teamwork; and include every player in order to be impactful and socially meaningful.
Academic research into cooperative games revealed that generated collaboration had a positive impact for players as it related to their pursuit of shared goals despite hidden information; constrained communication; and time pressure. These benefits affected students with different ability levels and special needs. Despite this; they were able to successfully interact and engage with one another; thus levelling the access to success and participation.
Therefore, well designed cooperative games prioritize this experience and make it so that team-based synergy for all players involved becomes a critical component towards making the experience practical, productive, and overall enjoyable. This is achieved in contrast to competition-based games which are rooted in interpersonal conflict that discourages some of the aforementioned positive benefits.
Cooperative games are also useful since much of their framework allows for the discussion of strategy and tactics; shared learning; and support of other players (especially younger ones). This function also provides the ability to reduce stress between players by deprioritizing the pressure to outperform others.
Perhaps this is best embodied in cooperatives focus on judgement, communication, and awareness that helps all players make the critical decision to decide to play well and for the benefit of each other.
Takeaways
This article covered cooperative games. It defined them and discussed both the history and philosophy behind cooperative play. Characteristics of cooperative games were discussed as well as how it fits the overall framework of play and games.
Cooperative games were compared to competitive games while also discussing some of the common criticisms behind competitive games. Cooperative games were identified as frameworks for shared experiences and explained this format in relation to some of cooperative games’ most common aspects.
Those aspects included the use, type, and limitation of communication in play and how this affects the different characteristics of pure cooperative games; hybrid cooperative games; semi-cooperative games; traitor games; and collaborative games.
Specific negative aspects of cooperative games – such as the Alpha Player – were discussed and how they could impact the entire player experience. Finally, this article closed on some of the positive characteristics of cooperative games, their social benefits, and cooperative games for teaching and learning.
These approaches were discussed in relation to cooperative game design as well as their overall lasting benefits.
This article covered cooperative games. To learn more about gamification, check out the free course on Gamification Explained.
Dave Eng, EdD
Principal
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Cite this Article
Eng, D. (2026, March 17). What are Cooperative Games?. Retrieved MONTH DATE, YEAR, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2026/3/12/what-are-cooperative-games
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