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Game Flow
Listing categories is one approach to describing pleasure in a game. Are there other approaches? Is it possible to look at game pleasure in a more abstract way to synthesize the diverse pleasures of gaming into a single concept? Think again about the experience of playing a game. One aspect of game pleasure lies in the intensity with which it is experienced, the almost overwhelming sensation of play. Whether the pleasure rests in a cognitive response, an emotional effect, or a physical reaction, the experience of play, and especially play in games, can be strikingly deep. As writer J. C. Herz writes of classic arcade gaming, "Just the emotion, the survival nature of the videogame- you're tapping into the most powerful human instinct. Survival. Fight or flight. That is so hugely intense that in some ways it becomes too intense. People really lived the games. They dreamed the games." All game players have experienced this feeling at one time or another, even if for only a short time. This level of engagement with a game suggests that the player has transcended an ordinary psychological state to arrive at a more profound relationship with the game. The psychologist and theorist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is best known for his research on what he calls the flow state-a particular state of mind in which a participant achieves a high degree of focus and enjoyment. His book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience offers a great general introduction to his ideas. Flow is filled with anecdotal accounts of individuals achieving a flow state, documented over the years of Csikszentmihalyi's research. The phenomenon of flow comes in many forms. Some people reported to Csikszentmihalyi that they reached flow through the rigors of perfecting an assembly line work task, or through the immersive problem-solving of law library research. Others say they achieved flow during the solitary exertion of rock climbing or through the exacting vocation of surgery. What exactly is flow? Csikszentmihalyi suggests that flow is something we have all experienced. It is a feeling of being in control of our actions, masters of our own fate. Although rare, when we achieve a state of flow we are deeply exhilarated. Csikszentmihalyi refers to this phenomenon as an optimal experience. [10]
It is what the sailor holding a tight course feels when the wind whips through her hair, when the boat lunges through the waves like a colt-sails, hull, wind, and sea humming a harmony that vibrates in the sailor's veins. It is what a painter feels when the colors on the canvas begin to set up a magnetic tension with each other, and a new thing, a living form, takes shape in front of the astonished creator. [11]
Flow is, more than anything else, an emotional and psychological state of focused and engaged happiness, when a person feels a sense of achievement and accomplishment, and a greater sense of self. What might be the relevance of flow for game design? In many ways, the heightened enjoyment and engagement of the flow state is exactly what game designers seek to establish for their players. In fact, many of Csikszent-mihalyi's examples come from games, such as professional Chess players, which were an early focus of his research. The connection between game design and the flow experience clearly appears in Csikszentmihalyi's description of the components of flow, the conditions that make flow possible. He lists eight components: First, the experience usually occurs when we confront tasks we have a chance of completing. Second, we must be able to concentrate on what we are doing.Third and fourth, the concentration is usually possible because the task undertaken has clear goals and provides immediate feedback. Fifth, one acts with a deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life. Sixth, enjoyable experiences allow people to exercise a sense of control over their actions. Seventh, concern for the self disappears, yet paradoxically the sense of self emerges stronger after the flow experience is over. Finally, the sense of the duration of time is altered; hours pass by like minutes, and minutes can stretch out to seem like hours.[12]
It should be immediately striking how every one of these eight components corresponds to an aspect of games. We can look at each in more detail, making use of Csikszentmihalyi's own language.[13][13]
A Challenging Activity that Requires Skills: Csikszentmihalyi emphasizes the fact that the flow activity is not passively experienced; it requires active and directed engagement. "The overwhelming proportion of optimal experiences are reported to occur within sequences of activities that are goal-directed and bounded by rules." This sounds remarkably like a description of a game. The Merging of Action and Awareness: One distinctive feature of the flow state is that a person is so absorbed in the activity that it becomes "spontaneous, almost automatic; they stop being aware of themselves as separate from the actions they are performing." This component of the flow experience is something that can occur in games as well. David Sudnow's account of his engagement with Breakout clearly describes this state of mind. Clear Goals and Feedback: These two components evoke the goal-oriented nature of games and the discernable action-outcome sequence necessary for making meaningful choices. Meaningful play seems to be intimately related to flow. Concentration on the Task at Hand: A common effect of flow is "a complete focusing of attention on the task at hand, thus leaving no room in the mind for irrelevant information." Like a game that removes itself from "ordinary life," flow activities carve out their own experiential spaces for participants. The Paradox of Control: In an optimal experience, the participant is able to exercise control without completely being in control of the situation. If there is no chance of failure, the activity is not difficult enough. "Only when a doubtful outcome is at stake, and one is able to influence that outcome, can a person really know whether she is in control." As game players struggle against the system of artificial conflict, they attempt to assert control by taking actions. Yet the outcome of a game is always uncertain. The Loss of Self-Consciousness: In flow, the participant's sense of self becomes subservient to the greater whole of the experience. "When a person invests all her psychic energy into an interaction. . . she in effect becomes part of a system of action greater than what the individual self had been before. This system takes its form from the rules of the activity; its energy comes from the person's attention." The fact that Csikszentmihalyi emphasizes the systemic quality of a participant's connection with the flow activity is reminiscent of the system-based nature of games.
When we consider a game as an experiential system, the player is a component of that system-a formulation echoed by Csikszentmihalyi. The Transformation of Time: The participant's sense of time can stretch or shrink. Sometimes this feeling comes directly from the activity itself:"Most flow activities do not depend on clock time; like baseball, they have their own pace, their own sequences of events marking transitions from one state to another without regard to equal intervals of duration." Games not only change our perception of time but also offer freedom from its tyranny; losing track of time adds to the exhilaration we feel during a state of complete involvement. In each of the eight components of the flow activity Csikszentmihalyi mentions, there are clear parallels with games. This doesn't mean that flow applies only to games, or that every game produces a flow state for its players. What it does mean is that games are one of the best kinds of activities to produce flow. The rules, goals, feedback, uncertain outcome, and other qualities of games make them fertile terrain for the flowering of a flow experience. We believe there is an intrinsic connection between game play and flow. Although the maximum flow "optimal experience" that Csikszentmihalyi describes is rarely achieved, all forms of play in some way partake of the flow experience. The conditions for flow are established as players find the interstices of a rigid structure, engaging with rules in order to play with them and transform them. Flow is one way of understanding that pleasure which draws players to a game and keeps them there. Although he does not organize them this way, Csikszentmi-halyi's eight categories can be divided into two groups. Four of the eight components of flow describe the effects of the flow state:
the merging of action and awareness
concentration
the loss of self-consciousness
the transformation of time
All of these effects occur in the player's experience once flow commences. These four facets of flow can diagnose whether a player has reached the flow state. If you are not sure if your game is truly producing flow, go down the list. If some or all of the four experiences listed are missing, you may need to adjust your design. But what kinds of adjustments are necessary? That's where the other four components come into play. Rather than being effects of flow, they represent flow's prerequisites:
a challenging activity
clear goals
clear feedback
the paradox of having control in an uncertain situation
These four prerequisite elements of flow are characteristics of the flow activity itself. Within them is the key to designing flow in games. Does your game contain the prerequisites of flow? Is there enough challenge to create real uncertainty? Do the players clearly understand the goals? As they move through the system, do their actions provide clear feedback and a sense of control? If your game supplies all of these mechanisms, you are well on your way to creating the necessary conditions for flow.
If your aim is to create a flow state for your players, we can summarize our advice quite simply: design meaningful play. The four prerequisites of flow bear a striking resemblance to the key components of meaningful play. "Clear feedback" is another way of stating the need for discernable choices and outcomes in an interactive experience. The goals, challenge, and uncertainty of a game provide the larger context within which choices are integrated and become meaningful. This is not to say that meaningful play is the same thing as flow. Flow is a state of mind and meaningful play is an approach to game design. But when it comes to games, the two are closely intertwined. If you want to create flow in a game, meaningful play must be present. If you want to design meaningful play, flow can be a useful diagnostic tool in the process of making your game. Why would game designers want to create a flow state for their players? Being in flow represents a rich and meaningful engagement with the activity at hand. Generally, as a game designer, you are creating game systems meant for deep exploration. We should all be so lucky that players of our games invest enough effort and attention to achieve a state of flow. Remember that flow doesn't refer to just one kind of experience. The flow that surgeons feel is by all accounts radically different in sensation and emotion than the flow of a LARP combat. What unites all forms of flow, however, is the optimal happiness that participants experience. As an experiential goal for creating games, spreading happiness, focus, and a sense of well-being is certainly a worthy pursuit. [10]J. C. Herz, Joystick Nation: How Videogames Ate Our Quarters, Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Minds (New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1997), p. 79.[11]Csikszentmihalyi, Flow, p. 3.[12]Ibid. p. 49.[13]Ibid. p.49-67.[13]Brian Sutton-Smith, The Ambiguity of Play (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2001), p. 185.
