[MUD-Dev] Finding What a Gamer Lacks in Their Day

[John Buehler]

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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