Curmudgeon Gamer
05 January 2007
I'm sorry, I wasn't having fun?
Gamasutra is running a story called - Researchers: Deeper Emotions Keep Gamers Playing. The study from U of Rochester apparently is picking a fight with fun.
The research found that games can provide opportunities for achievement, freedom, and even a connection to other players. Those benefits trumped a shallow sense of fun, which doesn't keep players as interested.
Obviously I need to read the original, but what is "fun" again? If I change the first line to "games that provide shallow senses of achievement, freedom, and even a shallow connection to other gamers cannot trump a deep sense of fun," can we be fun-lovers again?
It would seem we're simply calling a rose (and a weed) by other names.
But to be a bit more productive, I suppose Tetris is the archetypal "fun" game. It's not particularly freedom-imbibing, and rarely, Matt and my adventures in "cooperative" Tetris aside, gives much of a connection to other gamers, yet seems to remain quite popular and "fun," even perhaps "shallowly fun," to play.
There's a girl at the local coffee shop who comes in several times a week for hours at a time. I figured she was an author. Finally, after some careful surveillance, it appears she's simply playing Solitaire on her laptop 95% of the time. Bizarre. And I was wasting $15 a month on WoW.
Take that, University of Ra-cha-cha. Wait until she finds out fun is not enough to keep her interested.
The research found that games can provide opportunities for achievement, freedom, and even a connection to other players. Those benefits trumped a shallow sense of fun, which doesn't keep players as interested.
Obviously I need to read the original, but what is "fun" again? If I change the first line to "games that provide shallow senses of achievement, freedom, and even a shallow connection to other gamers cannot trump a deep sense of fun," can we be fun-lovers again?
It would seem we're simply calling a rose (and a weed) by other names.
But to be a bit more productive, I suppose Tetris is the archetypal "fun" game. It's not particularly freedom-imbibing, and rarely, Matt and my adventures in "cooperative" Tetris aside, gives much of a connection to other gamers, yet seems to remain quite popular and "fun," even perhaps "shallowly fun," to play.
There's a girl at the local coffee shop who comes in several times a week for hours at a time. I figured she was an author. Finally, after some careful surveillance, it appears she's simply playing Solitaire on her laptop 95% of the time. Bizarre. And I was wasting $15 a month on WoW.
Take that, University of Ra-cha-cha. Wait until she finds out fun is not enough to keep her interested.
--ruffin at 09:03
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Comments on this post:
You totally stole the spot where I was going to put one of the long Tetris pieces. And you stuck one of those nasty T-shaped ones there instead! Do you want us to lose!?
By 
jvm, at
05 January, 2007 10:03
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