Games bring joy – I came to the this conclusion when
asking questions about why people love to play games and why they spend so much time
on it.
Often we see happiness in some external attributes:
money, wealth, status in society. When we receive it, we feel good, but not for
long. We enjoy things and we want more. Moreover, in order to achieve the some
significant state of happiness we need large amounts of money, possessions and
fame.
The more we try to find happiness in the external
factors, the more difficult it is to get it. For this issue there is a special
term - "hedonic adaptation". Greater consumption has led to a harder
to achieve state of happiness that also lasts for less time. Thus, we search
for happiness in external attributes – but the truth is: at some point we cease
to receive pleasure from them or from anything else.
All of our feelings: love, passion, happiness,
euphoria, depression are a set of chemical elements inside our body. Games
provide an easy way to create this chemistry in us.
On the other hand, by concentrating on some internal
sources of pleasure and focusing happiness on the activity that brings positive
emotions, personal growth and social cohesion we attain long-term happiness. When
gaming we are not looking for a particular prize and just enjoy the process of
our development.
We are involved in such activity because it itself and
not its result brings us pleasure. It's pretty simple and logical –to achieve
the result it takes us always longer than the pleasure of the actual time of
the materialization of this result lasts. So enjoying the first is much better
than the second.
This was written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his
"Farewell Letter": "... the whole world wants to live in the
mountains, not realizing that true happiness is as we climb the mountain."
In other words, when the source of positive emotions
is yourself it can not be exhausted.
Games in their pure form are intended to meet only the
internal mechanisms of happiness: they will not help us to improve our social
status, help to make money or become famous. In life, if someone tells you to
solve a problem, which can take hundreds of hours, you're obviously not happy. But
in a game we all constantly criticize the length of it, because if you can
finish a game in just 10 hours – it is a bad one.
During games we do not really relax but work hard. It
does not matter that the actual work in the game is unreal - it is a real
emotional return. This is a contradiction to popular belief about happiness -
everyone seems to believe how I want to live an easy life, to have everything
and yet do not ant to do anything. But this does not bring happiness. The good
fortune is in the process of achieving all of it.
A good game is gives a positive emotion. Everyone
understands this - the success of the game and profit of the development
company depends on how much satisfaction they deliver or on how happy they make
people.
Games are more attractive than the reality - they have
clear goals which are always possible to achieve and from which you get
satisfaction. That's why gamers get hooked on a game and suffer addiction.
The concept of "gameplay” appeared for a reason.
Good gameplay is when the game is enjoyable and fun to play throughout the
entire time. It turns out that it is not only the result but also the process
itself that play a big role.
Gameplay is a good concept to enhance the human
motivational system in both positive and negative ways.
