Wednesday 7 March 2007

gaming journal week 5 - pleasure, pain and play. - Interaction.

Games will always be a form of entertainment to any person; this universal appeal is what makes them pleasurable for us as gamers. What ever happens there will always be a demand for games no matter how old or young people are. This appeal of games is known as iteration. Caillois’s model talks about gaming as a “kind of basic typology for describing the orientation, combination, articulation, and characteristics of events.” (Caillois, Man, Play and Games, P 71 - 80.) So when we play a game we experience the competition, the chance, the vertigo and the simulation and this is why we continue to play the games over and over again.

When I was playing Need for Speed which I am generally forced to do by my boyfriend, I often find it a huge challenge but as I become more absorbed by my ability to complete the challenges I begin to enjoy it more and want to play it more until I reach a level that I cannot get past. I continue to try and complete the stage but my move from iterative to repetitive has started to become annoying as I know what is going to happen and the situation becomes impossible, but I will complete it! Wolf et al state “In gaming, the player enters a feedback loop in which she is both subject and object of her action. The pleasures of activity are combined and merged with the pleasures of passivity, and their dynamic balance is what is essential in grafting or inducing addictive experiences.” (2003, P. 214-215.) Sow hen I watch my boyfriend playing and he seems to zoom through the areas that I cant I try to do it again and again but sometimes the barriers of the game stop me for example time. By trying to play the game differently from previous times I then gain more pleasure because I am closer to my goal of completing the level. The reasons why I am trying so hard to complete the game is because I have been rewarded in previous stages by reaching the next level so continuing to find ways to beat the game in different ways that I have already tried will hopefully help me to finish the current level.


Word Count 377

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