mja007's blog

In the book Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal, the author describes games as something containing these four elements; a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation. These elements have been twisted, turned, bent, and become almost invisible in some games, but they are still there. With out these elements games would not be the way they are now, fun, challenging, and addicting. Now what makes a game fun? The author describes playing games as hard work, but in a way the author is true, we donate a large number of hours on these games, wanting to unlock all the possible outcomes, in games such as Skyrim the player progresses through a level system becoming stronger, faster, stealthier, or magical, in quest of defeating a hoard of dragons who have been sent forward in time to conquer the province of Skyrim. Now this takes time, dedication, and sacrifice to level all of your desired skills but once you have reached your final goal you feel fiero. Fiero is the Italian word for pride and it is used to describe the emotional high we feel when completing a challenging feat in a game, it is this emotional high we strive for in games, and it is this emotion that makes games fun for the player. Her thoughts on describing a game are similar to what the class ended up having, simply dealing with rules, and challenges. Yet we were missing a key element, voluntary participation. Yes a person can play a game unwillingly, but then it isn’t a game, it is simply work, it isn’t fun.