Games in three dimensions

image by WillowW, GNU FDL

After a great talk on simplicity vs. complexity in game design at MIT's GAMBIT Lab by Andrew Grant, I'm left thinking about how otherwise I'd think about a scale against which you could classify a game.

During the talk, I came up with three dimensions:

Many games bridge these.  One player may approach virtual worlds as a synchronous social game.  Another may throw up a window in Second Life for the music stream from a live performer, and not even pay attention.  Civilization is asynch by mechanics -- it's turn based -- but many players adopt an immersive marathon style in playing it -- and it's designed for that too.

This isn't a hard taxonomy, so much as a tool for mulling over.  Where do your mechanics fall?  Do your players have the same experience or want the same experience as you designed?

No answers, always more questions!