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

[John Buehler]

Sasha Hart writes:
> [John Buehler said]

>> If we seek uplifting, altruistic stimuli, then we will seek
>> activities that give us those stimuli.

> Ever get full and then find you had room for dessert? (Probably
> because it is more palatable, but not because you were looking for
> more food.) Similarly, rats will eat more if they get one food,
> then a different one (than if they were just given the same food
> twice.)  How much you eat depends on many more things than how
> hungry you are. It isn't precisely homeostatic, which is I think
> the connotation and usefulness "need" brings into the
> picture. Well, if hunger isn't exactly this way, I can't think
> that muds are.

Actually, no, I've never been full and then found room for dessert.
That's because hunger really is what drives me to eat.  For others,
it gets more involved.  They see dessert and think of how they want
the flavor (a stimulus).  Others see dessert and see a social
opportunity (a stimulus).  Stimuli don't have to be straightforward
extensions of the inherent properties of the stimuli source.  Thus
the comment about perceptions.

The diner feels a need for the dessert in some way.  It doesn't have
to be that they still want more nourishment.

> The content of games can be attractive at least partly independent
> of their ability to fill in "needs." I don't really actively seek
> out things like "uplifting, altruistic stimuli", do I? Don't I
> have the capacity to like things other than things I'm looking
> for?  (Windfall, useless but attractive presents?) Can't I even
> acquire needs for things I never needed before (think of heroin)? 
> Yes, yes, of course...

Give me an example of a game that is attractive to somebody
independent of their needs.  I'm not talking conscious or even
significant needs, here.  If you don't like the word 'need', pick a
different one.  A 'lack', a 'deficit' or an 'absence', if you like.

But what does any of this have to do with my original point that
entertainment provides stimuli that players are seeking?  If we look
at entertainment at that level, then we should be looking at the
things that the target demographic groups are most desireous of.  Do
we have any psychologists running around here who care to speculate
on the American psyche?

JB

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