What makes a game fun? - Initially I thought to my self, that this is a subjective questions. Meaning what one person might find fun another person may not.
Paleolic Pastimes: Games re a specialised form of play based on human interaction.
"Anyone who thinks there is a difference between education and entertainment doesn't know the first thing about either". - Marshall McLuham, Communications Theorist.
"We must do a few things to survive. Everything else is entertainment". - Marvin Minsky, Artificial Intelligence expert at GDC lecture March 24 2001.
- Aagh: Always goes to hunt. Even when full.
- Bohg: Passes his time by kicking back and catching nothing more challenging than some rays.
- Cragh: Only hunts when hungry. Practices throwing/running/fighting.
Physical Fun:
Anything that directly threatens our survival automatically commands our full attentions.
Games - Survivial to capture attention of players.
Focus on:
- Soldiers
-Violence
- Criminals
- Police
- Others who deal with a matter of life and death.
Survival Instinct - Strong muscles and good co-ordination. This explains why sports are popular within most cultures.
- Like (Ritualizing combat or hunting)
"Deer hunter" - Not all popular games need to focus on complex fantasy or science fiction themes or cutting edge 3D graphics if they can tie into this fascination with basic survival, as reality tv shows have also discovered.
Gathering as Physical Fun:
- Casinos
- Gathering items: Pacman, Pokemeon - "Gotta catch em all".
Exploration as Physical Fun:
- Postive as a development for evolution in the human speicies:
Social Fun:
- Meeting and attracting mates as evolution.
- Online Multiplayer Games
- Cell Phone Games
- IM based Games
- GPS based Games
(Social aspect of Video Games)
- Tribal creatures.
- Shopping and trading, collectable items.
- Social chat over best parties.
- Social bonding and gossiping with friends.
- Stories.
Virtual communities due to social gaming experiances:
- Tribes
- Clans
- Virtual marriges/Real-World
- Friendships.
Improved AI and voice recognition all make new kings of social interaction possible.
The Sims:
- Everyday live.
Physical fun is associated with out upright posture and tool use.
Social fun is associated with another important human advantage, our language ability.
Team Sports:
- Tetris = Neither of these survival instincts.
Mental Fun:
- The essence of intelligence is the perception and manipulation of patterns.
- Puzzle games - music.
Although the literal action of Tetris is at best a servere stretch to link to social activities, more abstract function of quickly recognising - and acting on patterns is quite useful.
Natural Funativity - Value of various hobbies that have little obvious survival value but also involve pattern recognition and appreciation from stamp and coin collection to appreciation of all forms of Art and Music.
- Workout of the brain.
Blended Fun:
- Physical
- Mental
- Social
(MMORPGS)
Applying Natural Funativity:
Survival - Fun?
- Evolving
"Grand Turismo"
- Physical: Learnings to move as quickly as possible.
- Social: Competing with our peers and gaining status and recognition
- Mental: Appeal of pervieving constantly changing patterns in the midst of a race and acting on them instantly and correctly all connect back to our pre-history.
