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Sculpting Desire
If one problem with the concept of flow is that it is not as game-specific as we would like, what would it mean to take a more game-centric look at pleasure? Thinking of games as systems of pleasure implies that the game designer is an artisan of desire, shaping the pleasure of the players of a game. The designed system of the game, set in motion by the participation of players, becomes not just an experience of play, but also an experience of sensual, emotional, and psychological pleasure. Achieving such an experience requires that a game designer not only pay attention to the immediate feelings of pleasure a game may produce, but also the way that a player's pleasure evolves and changes over the course of a single game, or across many games.
Anyone can sit down at Quake and start shooting things. As he gains more experience, he realizes that if he stands in one place, he'll get killed, so he learns to start moving while shooting.Then he learns to circle-strafe. Then, to shoot while running backwards. Then, to figure out which weapons are better up close or far away.
As useful as it is, the concept of flow is not a skeleton key to unlock every mystery surrounding play and pleasure in games. Consider a few of the challenges in applying flow to game design: Flow is not unique to games. As Csikszentmihalyi's many examples from art, work, and non-game leisure demonstrate, flow can occur in many kinds of activities. Why is this a problem? If one of our goals as game designers is to understand and isolate the unique kinds of pleasures that only games can provide, then the flow state is not of much help. Flow is more about the player than the game. According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow depends at least as much on the attitude of the individual participant as the activity itself. Chess masters may achieve flow, but most Chess players do not. There is no guarantee that the game you design will be put to use by players that are ready or able to experience flow. A player's individual psyche is out of a game designer's control. Flow is not a universal phenomenon. It is easy to get carried away and assume that the flow state is the ultimate experience that every game design should try and induce. That is simply not the case. As Sutton-Smith points out in a critique of Csikszentmihalyi's work,"To say flow is universal might be like saying that all peak sex is everywhere the same, and that 'flow' is to play what orgasm is to sex. But who would be innocent enough of all the different contexts and acts that make sex meaningful to say something like that?" Although flow is a useful conceptual tool for creating pleasure in games, it is but one of many possible tools. Flow offers a rigorous investigation into one kind of meaningful engagement, even if it doesn't represent a universal state of mind and even if it isn't completely unique to games. Then he learns to rocket jump. As he progresses, he learns the characteristics of each weapon. He learns to "lead" his opponent. Anyone can pick up Quake and start having a good time within minutes, yet the longer he spends mastering the game, the more enjoyable it becomes.[15]
Quake is easy to learn but difficult to master. As game designer Bob Bates points out, it offers players a gaming experience that is pleasurable in both the short and long term. Because the core mechanic is relatively simple-move and shoot-players gain immediate access to the pleasures the game affords. Because playing the game well requires subtle skills that can only develop through repetitive play, long-term engagement with the game brings its own kind of pleasurable reward. How does pleasure emerge and evolve over time in a game? All of the possible states and experiences of a game are contained within the theoretical construct called the space of possibility. A game player begins his or her journey through the space of possibility at the same place every time: the start of the game. But the experiential path that a player takes through the space will vary each time the game is played. Every play of the game will be unique, even though the rules of the game, its formal structure, remain fixed. This quality of games, that a game provides the same consistent structure each time but a different experience and outcome every time it is played, is a powerful engine that sustains and encourages play. We refer to this concept by the shorthand term same-but-different.
The same-but-different experience of play occurs both within an individual game, as well as across more than one game. Inside a game of Breakout, the player engages with the core mechanic over and over, exploring its permutations many times within the changing context of the game. Hit the ball again and again. Can you get that bank shot a second time from the side? Or slow things down by hitting the square in the middle of the paddle? Can you control the flow of the volley? Within a game, given the same repetitive action of play, part of the pleasure that sustains the game is the player's ability to engage repeatedly with the same kind of interactivity-but with different results. The core mechanic of a game provides its own inherent pleasure, whether it takes the form of the sensual click of a Tiddley-Winks flip or the simple, randomized drama of each round of the card game War. If a game's core mechanic is well-designed, players may not even care about winning. Players can enjoy Tennis just for the sake of a good volley, or Charades for the challenge of skillful pantomime and clever guessing. But to sustain pleasure over time, the repeated action of the core mechanic needs to embody the concept of same-but-different. It needs to continue to offer up new variations and experiences, even if they are as subtle as the gradual build-up of Tiddley-Winks skill or the deterministic playing-out of fate in War. On a larger level, the same phenomenon occurs as a player plays a game more than one time. In this case, it is not the core mechanic that is repeated, but the entire formal structure of the game. The rules remain the same, but the play is different. It doesn't always happen, but if the play is meaningful enough, if the pleasure is rich and flowing, then a player will want to play a game again. With repeated play, the structure is increasingly familiar, and the player continues to play out the possible experiential permutations of the game. Within and between games, players discover the comforting familiarity of a fixed structure and the challenge and danger of an uncertain outcome. This same-but-different mechanism makes for an extremely powerful engine of desire. It is the itch of the same-but-different that brings you back, time and time again, for just one more round of play.
Furthermore, transformative play assists this process. In Defining Play, we established transformative play as the special case of play, when the free movement of play alters the more rigid structure in which it takes shape. When the structure of the game is altered, the possibilities for replayability increase. Even in a simple betting game, transformative play can ensure that new experiences continue to arise, as a player finds new patterns of betting, new places in which to bet, new patterns of life into which the betting activity fits, new circles of friends to support the activity. Still, the game remains familiar, even as it changes. Philosopher James S. Hans expresses this notion of the same-but-different experience of play quite well: In this regard, all play shares one thing with games: a familiar structure that allows one to play with the unfamiliar. This familiar structure is not universal; it is contingent upon the particular context of play. Nor is this familiar structure always the same. Indeed, it changes every time it is played with, for the occasion for new play introduces different elements into the activity that become part of the structure of any future play…. The structure of the familiar then permits the introduction of the different; play in one sense is no more than the infection of the familiar by difference.[16]
Although Hans is talking about all kinds of play, every game by our definition shares this quality. He makes explicit the idea that play is transformative, that through repetition, play itself changes. Hans calls this play of desire "the infection of the familiar by difference"-perhaps the heart of what makes games pleasurable. Within the magic circle, rules endow actions with meanings. But the free movement that is play transforms these meanings, even as they are experienced, putting pleasure "at play" at each moment of a game. [15]Bob Bates,Game Design: The Art and Business of Creating Games (Roseville, CA: Prima Publishing, 2001), p. 37.[16]James S. Hans, The Play of the World (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981), p. 28.
