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22060: RE: [MUD-Dev] Finding What a Gamer Lacks in Their Day
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From: "John Buehler" <johnbue@msn.com>
Newsgroups: nu.kanga.list.mud-dev
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 01:21:15 -0800
References: [1]
Organization: Kanga.Nu
Yves Kerstius writes:
> Wednesday, January 16, 2002, 3:48:03 PM, John Buehler wrote:
>> This may be obvious to some others, but I wanted to present a
>> very basic notion about gaming and entertainment in general:
>> Entertainment is chosen because it provides a stimulus that is
>> otherwise missing or lacking in the person's life.
> I think this way of looking at gaming falls in the market point of
> view, the offer and demand way. While a part of the thruth, there
> is another way to look at it, more positive.
> People also chose gaming because of its educational value, not as
> a result of a wise reasoning, but because it is the way humans and
> animals naturaly learn, by playing.
> The vision of entertainment fulfilling a lack, like a medicine or
> even an addictive product, is really supplier-consumer oriented
> and I hope the interactive possibilities of the new technologies
> also allow for something more constructive, more participative,
> more entertaining...
I'm not attempting to cast dispersions on the nature of the human
race. Gaming offers experiences that we seek. You cite learning,
and I submit to you that learning is an explorer's stimulus (per the
Bartle four-category breakdown of gamers). As you say, there's no
wise reasoning involved, only a natural desire for a given stimulus.
I doubt that many students, after a long day at school are
interested in learning significantly from a game. They want to
experience things, often without any thinking involved. This is
also known as 'light entertainment'.
As for higher-end entertainment, that keeps to the same pattern. If
we seek uplifting, altruistic stimuli, then we will seek activities
that give us those stimuli. If a game can present it, we'll play
it. Otherwise, we'll look around us for other means of finding what
we're looking for.
JB
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