(The last thing I shared talked about friction and game design, and "friction" is one of those words I use a lot when talking about art and media and I think that's interesting, so.)
I remember reading a quote from St. Vincent (the musician, not the saint) that all of her favorite music is something she didn't like the first time she listened to it. This idea slash theory stuck with me even if the phrasing and source didn't, because it rings true: art pushes back. Sometimes this is stylistic: N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth series is told in the second person, which is jarring as hell; Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota has a narrator who is so extra I feel obligated to warn people I recommend the series to that he doesn't stop being like that; I love The Saddest Music In The World but it is unapproachably weird to people who are not used to Guy Maddin's style of filmmaking; and so on. And sometimes it's thematic: art that makes us uncomfortable, that causes us to think. It pushes back.
As with most things in art, a precise definition of "friction" is both difficult to provide and undesirable; difficult, because it will vary with the person, and undesirable, because to define is to diminish. But let's attempt something. This is how you pick a lock: you apply tension to the core, and you search for the pin that's binding--the pin where there is friction. Using your lockpick you lift that pin until it clicks into place, and the binding resolves; then you move on to the next binding pin, and you repeat the process until all of the pins have been set and the lock opens. That moment is magical. It is a sudden resolution of tension, the result of careful and focused work; if you're inexperienced, it will feel as if it came out of nowhere, and suddenly the core turns, though nothing has changed. The more experienced you are, the better you will be able to feel that it's coming, feel the shifts in tension and resistance and friction. And the surprise of the moment is replaced with something richer, a depth of understanding the inner workings of the lock, but it is not diminished.
Resist the urge to figure out precisely who is what in this analogy. The art is both the lock and the lockpick, and so is the artist, and so is the participant (I will not say "consumer"). Art is conversation; both to create and to experience art is to participate in that conversation, in that process of creating and resolving friction until, at last, something clicks. The lock turns.
Ask a random person on the internet what the worst part about Breath of the Wild is and they will probably tell you it's the weapon durability system. They're right but also it is a sine qua non of the game's success.
Consider the very early game, the Great Plateau. The friction of having nothing but a few tree branches to your name is what drives you to explore, to find something that will last a little longer; you use those tree branches to win a fight and pick up a sturdier club. You use that club to look for more clubs. They keep breaking; you keep needing more, you keep hoping to find something more durable. Because everywhere you go, you can be guaranteed to find some weapons, you learn very early on that exploring is always worth your while. And while you eventually do gain tools to mitigate the durability, it's always still there. Even if your priorities shift from "I just want enough weapons that I can get through a fight" to "I want to have my array of specialized tools for various jobs", you always have a reason to keep exploring.
I was recently reading an interview with Zelda series director Eiji Aonuma where he expressed a lack of understanding for why people wanted to return to the more linear, restrictive design of earlier games in the series; after all, in BOTW and TOTK you have so much more freedom than you did before. And that's true, but I'm not playing for freedom. In an open world you can go wherever you want and it doesn't really matter. Do what you want! It's all the same in the end. Restriction done well creates friction: you want to go here but you can't. What can you do about that? Do you need something else, or is there another way around?
Friction is at its most obvious in video games because they are meant to actively resist what you are trying to do, but it's present and necessary in all forms of art. There is friction in Yojimbo, as we watch the title character make things worse with his commitment to solving his problems with violence; there is friction in The Broken Earth as we watch the world burn and everyone suffer because the oppressed class had finally had enough; there is friction in A Memory Called Empire as we see the beauty and poetry of an empire that colonizes and destroys.
A while ago I shared a quote by Elena Ferrante whose text reads:
I don't think the reader should be indulged as a consumer, because he isn't one. Literature that indulges the tastes of the reader is a degraded literature. My goal is to disappoint the usual expectations and inspire new ones.
This is the heart of it, I think. It's the same thing as Vonnegut's, in my opinion, best writing advice: "Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia." Because when you are attempting to cater to an audience's tastes, what you are doing is removing friction. You are making something that may very well be entertaining, but in the end becomes diminished. It says nothing, it accomplishes nothing, and it is ultimately unmemorable. Art as product to be consumed.
And when you take away that sensation of resolving friction, when the lock turns with no effort on your part, you come away unfulfilled, uninvested; it was fine, you enjoyed yourself, but there is nothing there for you to wrestle with, nothing to chew on, no sense of accomplishment.
Anyone can use a key.