Developing a New Major

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gamasutra article – 14 forms of fun by Pierre-Alexandre Garneau from 2001

his 14 kinds of fun – beauty, immersion intellectual problem solving competition social interaction comedy thrill of danger, physical activity, love creation, power, discovery, advancement and completion, application of an ability

according to Heeter (go back to this article and take notes – it’s a nice content analysis project that we could redo as an independent project – quantitative – they played games on the same topic and looked at the kinds of fun and some other topics) -  there are 2 additional forms of fun that might appeal more to girls than some of the other 14 forms of fun above – altruism (helping others play the game, helping NPCs), and learning facts and concepts  about the world (important for educational games) URL: http://spacepioneers.msu.edu/forms_of_fun_july_2004.pdf

beauty – quality of graphics, sound/music quality, games rigth now really one 2 senses (sight and sound), beauty shows up in Myst, FInal Fantasy,  and America McGee’s Alice, beauty drives the player forward – players want to see the next beautiful scene or character

immersion – related to beauty, pleasure of being in a different environment or living a fantasy life, escape your problems,first person perspective brings player more deeply into the game, makes people feel they are acting nad not just controlling an avatar (and the avatar gets to do all the fun stuff), examples Thief: The Dard Project and Deus Ex and Shenmue, videogames active participation and active immersion movies nad tv are immersive but passive

intellectual problem solving – games almost always have problems to solve, problems consist of rules and a setting (context), ex: player gets to find a solution to a problem while adhering to the rules, ex: Tetris has simple rules and setting and goals, can have dynamic puzzles that evolve as player responds to game situations – ex: chess, Desu Ex (problems have multiple solutions which makes them more interesting for hte user, don’t have to just ‘find the trick’, not abstract as chess), problems need to stay true tot he game story line so immersion isn’t broken

competition – chance to show off & be superior, multiplayer games have the most competition/fiercest competition, compete against other people, compete against the computer, compete againstyourself, could use to increase replay game can’t be too easy so that player wins all the time – there’s no competition then, could define winning in lots of ways so people can compete on different levels – points, kills, time in game…

social interaction – related to compete on some level – doing stuff with other people, talking with other people, social networks are fun for users to hang out with friends, ex: MMORPG, communities building up around popular games

comedy – stuff that makes us laugh, comedy used in all media, videogames don’t yuse it very much could use much more often, very few have comedy as the central theme but might have a couple of funny one liners, comic relief also under-used, good  ex: Leisure Suit Larry, Day of the Tentacle

thrill of danger – people enjoy the rush of adrenaline – like extreme sports, and what’s nice in a game you know nothing can really hurt you, increase the thrill by raising the stakes (like in poker), EX: hardcore mode in Diablo II – if you get killed you can’t reload previously saved games and can’t get resurrected – ex of raising the stakes, could also make it impossible to save during the middle of a level, could quickly go from fun to making the game too difficult/frustrating

physical activity – ex: ddr, sports (real world), probably not going to be more used in videogames because of controller limitations (Wii kind of changes this – lots of physical activity with the wiimote and wii fit)

love – maybe also romance & sex, not too much romance or love in games, and hard to see how that oculd be increased but this guy thinks it should  because those kinds of stories would be pretty original in games and it might increase replay, ex: Leisure Suit Larry, Final Fnatasy has a love story, could have a pet that people develop a relationship with like in Black & White (aren’t there pets in WOW), Tomb Raider has lust (for Lara kroft), DDR has ego boost from admiration of hte crowd/fans who watch you dance

creation – make stuff, ex: Sim City & The Sims, mods like Counter Strike, games have tools built in

power – strength, people want to be powerful (promotions, more money influence over other people), lost of epic tales about power struggles, easy to put into a game, ex: Diablo II, strategy games, can present power to players in different ways – level ups, character customization, improving player’s stats and giving htem more abilities

discovery – find out new stuff (isn’t this kind of related to Heeter’s learn facts and concepts about the real world?), give new levels/weapons/enemies for player to explore over time, ex: Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time where exploration of hte world is a main feature of the game adn the world is big and expands as you explore, keeps the player interested and when they find hidden new stuff they feel special,

advancement/completion – finishing an activity, conquering an enemy, beating a game, advancing is fun but finishing is better, could put in variety of ways to solve a problem so players ahve different ways to advance, could have short levels so you can quickly finish a bunch of levels, in many games it’s easy to get stuck

skill application – lots of skill games (marbles, tennis darts, baseball…) lots of games have hand-eye coordination kinds of skill application, lots of skills like ability to move & aim & shoot correctly in first person shooters or enter complex moves, has to be some challenge in using hte skill – don’t make them keep clicking on a monster to kill it

game shouldn’t include all kinds of fun – that would just be a mess, also don’t want to just concentrate on 1 kind of fun – need to figure out a balance, different combinations that work well together – that would make interesting research project

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20011012/garneau_01.html

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