Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity, fulfillment and flow

Game flow theory explained by the master himself...

Pac-Man key learnings and the vision of Mr. Iwatani

A small introduction of Mr. Iwatani, he has been working for Bandai/Namco (we always say Namco/Bandai?) for 30 years as producer of more than 50 different games from Arcade games to Nintendo and PlayStation. He started teaching game-design at the University in 2007.

The first question I dared to ask to the God that created Pac-Man (and many more games at Namco like Time Crisis and Ridge Racer), was: "What makes a good game a great game?"

His first reply was: "Did you analyze Pac-Man"? With a big smile on his face. I told him I did, but I would rather hear the arguments from the creator of Pac-Man, than from myself, a guy that 'just' wrote a book about games as a marketing tool. He laughed and replied...

A good game needs to be really, really easy to understand.

If the goal of the game is not clear instantly, people will not play it. If you have to explain the rules through a demo or tutorial, people will be likely not to play it. If someone has to explain the rules to you, you will not want to play it...

Pac-Man is easy to understand, you know what to do as soon as the countdown hits 'GO!'

The game also contains many psychological elements in one environment. The labyrinth is always easy to comprehend and not too complex. Eating the cookies (the big dots) enables the player to eat the ghosts instead of the other way around, which makes the players feel good. Being able to escape through the side-doors gives a feeling of 'being able to escape'.

And finally, when Pac-Man gets caught by the ghosts, the game will be slightly easier for a short period of time. This encourages the player after 'failing'.

It surprised me that so many psychological elements were deliberately put in the game already 30 years ago when games were just emerging.

My second question was 'what IS the Pac-Man' character actually? Is he a moon, a pizza missing a slice or what? The answer to that question was: he is a nice - happy -guy that likes to eat. There were also variations in games where he could eat bad things like nuclear weapons.

The third question I asked was how Mr. Iwatani sees games as a marketing tool and he strongly believes that games will be around us in the future like water. It will be a common way of learning and interacting with appliances around us, without even noticing that we are playing games. Games will be applicable more and more in everyday life.

I was also happy that he believes that serious games are not a genre. There are just games and whether you think it's fun or serious depends on the user and purpose. But serious purposes can be achieved in a fun-way e.g. using games....

About the future of gaming, Mr. Iwatani notices that mobile phones will be the future platforms especially when they interact with real-life, for instance in Arcade halls where you could play a game on a big iPad kind of table using your iPhone, while meeting friends and playing with them. When you leave, you should still be able to influence on critical issues within the game (keeping your character alive, defending your base, managing your resources / cutting wood, or whatever), but when you come back after a week you can benefit from the efforts and activities you undertook while away from the Arcade hall using your iPhone.

I hope this all makes sense, because it is difficult to explain in plain text... I will elaborate on the future of gaming shortly!

Take care,

Bart

Six levels of involvement

Image via Wikipedia

According to Gordon Calleja gamers have 6 levels of involvement when playing games, from shallow to 'deep'.



"The six frames include: affective, spatial, narrative, tactical, performative and shared involvement. These are described as ranging on a continuum from conscious to internalized involvement.
The internalization of spatial and other frames of involvement can result in what I will call “incorporation”. This term replaces presence and immersion with the aim of displacing the binary relationships implied in these metaphors while proposing a clear conception of the experiential phenomenon they are employed to describe. It replaces the uni-directional plunge of player into game-space implied by the term immersion with one of simultaneous assimilation of the digital environment and presence to others within it." Thus Gordon Calleja.

Explaining in short what the six levels mean:

Affective: do I like what I see, does it look attractive and comprehensible? Does it tempt trial!?

Spatial: do I understand the environment and basic mechanics of the game? Is the goal clear?

Narrative: How does the story involve me, which clues and progress do I get to keep me interested and involved?

Tactical: As soon as the above is clear, the player feels comfortable in this digital interactive virtual world. Gamers need to feel they understand and are in control of this constantly changing environment.

Performative: Searching for the boundaries of what I can do in-game (mastering the game). The gamer is bending and tempting the rules of play so to speak. Character identification probably takes place in this face and the virtual world and reality seem to start blurring.

Shared involvement: In what way can I interact with objects and (virtual) characters and (real life) team mates? In short: in-game socializing - a highly underestimated virtue of gaming (by non-gamers) if you ask me!


Visit this website for more on this subject: http://www.gordoncalleja.com/

Why are games so addictive?

There are a few theories that help us form an opinion why games are so addictive.
One is the theory of ‘Flow’ – defined by Mihaly Csikzentmihlyi (try to say that out loud). The gamer balances between boredom and frustration. If a game is too easy, he or she will lose interest. If it’s too difficult, people will get frustrated and stop playing.

A second aspect of gaming is that gamers always needs to have the feeling they are making progress towards their goal. The gamer needs to develop skills to ensure progress as the game will get tougher and tougher over time with each next level.
If you combine these two theories you will see that gamers will have a moment of self reflection as soon as they fail in a certain level and are on the maximum level of frustration. Should they succeed the next time, the gamer will be rewarded by the game (Level up! Or ‘Congratulations) and himself (relief that the difficult task was completed successfully. So positive feedback and rewards are important as well, just as it is in real life.
The feeling of being able to master or control a situation is a fourth reasons why games appear to be so addictive. The increased and developed skill per level and the fact that good games are easy to learn, difficult to master.
Finally why games are so addictive is invoked by the theory of absorption. Just like books and films, games have the ability to soak up gamers. You will be literally be sucked into a game if the flow is right. According To scientists there are multiple levels of emersion. But this will be discussed in a new posting.

Definition of the word: GAME

Hi there,

after many interviews with - amongst others - Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony PlayStation, I would like to try and form a definition of the word 'Game' as used in my upcoming book about Gaming & Branding.

Please feel free to argue and discuss this with me as I feel this will enrich the definition.

Game: a non productive, digital, interactive software program with clear goals, rules and dynamic content or plot development. Played voluntary on hardware like a pc, console, TV or handheld device.

Please share your feedback.