Wow! It has been a while since my last post here. Thousand apology. Being busy reading books and articles about games, spend times together with new friends playing more games, bringing our games to be enjoyed by different group of people and all range of ages. Since then I do get some direct comments and suggestion about the subject of Games. Significantly, for the first time we had bring games and fun to quite a remote village who do not get real exposure to many games. They don't even have good access to internet!
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| Board game corner - seen here Blokus and Incan Gold |
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| "Mind stimulating game" |
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| Young and adult playing Giant Jenga and many more games |
They all voluntarily joint the session hence approving a quote by Bernard Suits, the late, great philosopher:-
"Playing games is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles."
My first 2 post is on the power of games, so many friends and customer had been asking why actually we play games? Most of us that have Facebook have play Farmville but how many of us is actually farmer? Probably not many. Hence why we play it? It is a simple question but don't have a straight forward answer. There are many literature and books on the subject but I will quote a great summary from a research done by XEODesign Inc.... :-)
1) Hard Fun - Players like the opportunities for challenge, strategy, and problem solving. Their comments focus on the game’s challenge and strategic thinking and problem solving. This “Hard Fun” frequently generates emotions and experiences of Frustration, and Fiero (Fiero is an Italian word for personal triumph over adversity).
2) Easy Fun - Players enjoy intrigue and curiosity. Players become immersed in games when it absorbs their complete attention, or when it takes them on an exciting adventure. These Immersive game aspects are “Easy Fun” and generate emotions and experiences of Wonder, Awe, and Mystery.
3) Altered States - Players treasure the enjoyment from their internal experiences in reaction to the visceral, behavior, cognitive, and social properties. These players play for internal sensations such as Excitement or Relief from their thoughts and feelings.
4) The People Factor - Players use games as mechanisms for social experiences. These players enjoy the emotions of Amusement, Schadenfreude(Gloat over misfortune of a rival), and Naches(Pleasure or pride at the accomplishment) coming from the social experiences of competition, teamwork, as well as opportunity for social bonding and personal recognition that comes from playing with theirs.
There are probably more reasons, but above is a great summary.
Myself? I will settle for Fiero :-)
