[MUD-Dev2] [REPOST] Soapbox: World of Warcraft Teaches the Wrong Things by David Sirlin

[Paolo Piselli]

Nick Koranda <admin at mud-dev.com> wrote:
Fun is learning in a safe-environment.

I disagree with this assumption, but if you can point me to research that avows it I might reconsider.  My MS thesis was an HCI-themed investigation of fun complete with user studies:

http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/ms/game-fun/

The most significant result of this study was that enjoyment is based more on proximity to a performance "sweet spot" just past the win/loss threshold rather than on learning effects.  Combining my results with Kevin Burns' information-theoretic model for enjoyment , I conject that "fun" is based on goal-satisfaction under the conditions that the desired outcome is uncertain.  Although "learning" does count as information-gain, a learning-centered theory overstates the importance of of new factual information.  Sometimes the "learning" is just finding out wether or not the dice were lucky for you this time.

 -Paolo

Paolo Piselli
ppiselli at gmail.com
www.piselli.com
 		
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