week 4

In week 4 we looked at pleasure pain and play. The first thing we did was play a game called fishy in which you are a fish that get bigger every time you eat a fish smaller than you but if you go near a bigger fish you get eaten. Although the game is very simple it becomes very entertaining and addictive and I found myself wanting to beat my previous score every time I started again. In the lecture we looked at the reward flow iteration of playing games. I am going to look at the reward aspect. Firstly we looked at how playing games is not always fun. I find this very true when playing pro evolution soccer which is the game most frequently play in my spear time. When you start to lose lots of games its quite disheartening and can become painful to play. The same can be said for when I was playing doom 2, I became stuck on the 4th level and could not get any further and was playing the same part over and over with no success. We talked about the reason why we continue to play games when they become painful. Games tap into the brains reward circuitry, we looked at how games have very clear rewards, for example in pro evolution, the rewards for winning games is more money, a better position in the league, or possibly promotion to a new league. In doom 2 one of the first things you receive is health and amour which are small rewards within the game. I think this is why I keep playing pro evolution soccer even when losing because I know that if a play better next time round I will be rewarded for it. There are different types of rewards within games for example in doom you have rewards which aid your health and progression though the game such as new weapons and ammo. In pro evolution you receive points for victories which do not have direct repercussions all the time but help to go towards the overall total at the end of a season. The fact that the reward is virtual does not effect the game play which I think goes back to the lusory attitude. We become engrossed in the world of the game that we are not thinking materially, we are thinking within the magic circle of the game. When playing pro evolution I accept that my team is not going to be in the paper for winning the champions league, but the rewards within the game are still satisfactory because of the fact that are brains are wired to seek out rewards. Therefore this backs up the point that people will