Striving for balance: A look at gameplay requirements of massively multiplayer online role-playing games

The analysis revealed a process of striving to reach a balance among three perspectives of gameplay requirements: a process perspective, an artifact perspective and a player-designer relationship perspective. This balance-driven process is co-created by game developers and players, is endless within the MMORPG, and is happening both in-game and off-game. It heavily relies on 'paper-prototyping' and play-testing for the purpose of gameplay requirements validation. The study concludes with discussion on validity threats and on implications for requirements engineering research, practice and education.