Pleasure is intrinsic to games in many ways. The act of playing a game, submitting to a set of rules, is itself a form of pleasure. The restraint that limiting game behavior affords heightens the player's sense of pleasure.
Games provide autotelic pleasures, experiences that are pursued for their own sake. Although it is true that games provide extrinsic pleasures that affect a player's life outside the game, all games also provide intrinsic, autotelic pleasures that are significant only within the artificial meanings that the game creates.
Games must provide a double seduction for players. First, players must be seduced into entering the magic circle. Second, players must be continually seduced into remaining inside the circle of play.
There are many established typologies that address the forms of pleasure provided by games.Typologies of game pleasure are generally less useful for theorizing pleasure and more useful for organizing observations about game experience.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes optimal experience as flow. Flow is the exhilarating pleasure that occurs when someone is engaged with an activity and feels in control of his or her actions. Although flow is not unique to games, it is a useful way of thinking about the creation of game pleasure.
Csikszentmihalyi names eight characteristics of flow, each of which has a strong connection to games. Four of the eight characteristics describe the effects of flow:
the merging of action and awareness
concentration
the loss of self-consciousness
the transformation of time
The other four characteristics describe the prerequisites of the kind of activity that will result in flow:
a challenging activity
clear goals
clear feedback
the paradox of having control in an uncertain situation
Games possess a quality we call same-but-different. Every time one plays a game, the formal structure remains the same, but the way the rules play out are different. This quality of games makes it pleasurable for players to explore the space of possibility. Because play is often transformative, the continued exploration of a game can change the game structure itself, leading to a potentially endless sequence of same-but-different pleasures.
Entrainment means both to carry along and to trap. Entrainment is the process of falling into the rhythmic patterns of pleasure that games can provide.
The goal of a game is a key component in shaping the experience of pleasure. The goal is the object of desire held out to entice players to continue playing.
Suspended between moment-to-moment core mechanics and the ultimate end goal are short-term goals. Short-term goals help players make plans in a game as well as provide moments of satisfaction when they reach them.
Behavior theory is a branch of psychology that studies observable behavior. Conditioning is the acquisition of learned behaviors through rewards and punishments. Rewards and punishments can be used to teach players how to behave in a game from moment-to-moment, as well as create an experience that rewards players for their participation over time.
Reinforcement schedules refer to the rate at which players receive rewards and punishments. Schedules can be either fixed or variable in regard to an interval of time or the ratio of action to outcome. Generally, variable reinforcement shapes behavior more powerfully than fixed reinforcement.
Challenge is an important way to shape player pleasure. If the challenge of a game is too high for a player's skills, anxiety results. If there is not enough challenge, boredom results. Ideally, games provide a balanced challenge at all moments.
A game designer can only indirectly design the pleasurable experience of a game through the creation of a game's rules. To provide meaningful play and pleasure, the actions a player takes must be discernable and integrated.
The word addiction has different meanings in the medical community and the game community. For game designers, addiction is a positive quality that signifies players' meaningful interaction with a game. When pathologically addictive behavior emerges from a game, play is no longer possible.
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