Why GOATs Are GOATs: The Structural Commonalities of Games That Endure

By Joseph Lee

Why GOATs Are GOATs is not a book about "great games."
It is a book about why some games endure, while others collapse-
even when they are bigger, prettier, or more expensive.
Most game criticism focuses on content:
story, graphics, characters, or emotional impact.
This book argues that those are secondary.
Players do not consume games.
They live inside systems.
What makes a game last is not how it feels once,
but whether its structure can support meaningful time-
time that can fail, repeat, detour, and still matter.
Through close structural analysis of landmark games
-from Dark Souls, Zelda, and RimWorld
to forgotten failures and controversial experiments-
this book identifies the shared architectural principles behind games that survive:
Freedom as permission, not choice menus
Repetition as rhythm, not labor
Combat as decision density, not "feel"
Narrative as emergent consequence, not scripted plot
Failure as education, not punishment
This is not a nostalgia piece.
It is not a ranking.
And it is not a review collection.
Why GOATs Are GOATs is a framework-
a way to judge games by how they treat the player's time.
Because content can be consumed.
But time, once wasted, is never returned.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GC6MPGMM
• ISBN13: 9798241002983
• Release Date: December 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 102 Pages
• Weight: 0.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"