Gaming, Pleasure and Pain

Rewards are what people work towards, what they strive to reach: “The result of successful strategy, adding value to the organisation and the individual” (Internet Definition). Within games there are three aesthetic theories of play; reward, flow and iteration. Most games all have an element to them not being enjoyable; there is the prospect of losing, being injured or dying and a lot of repetition. However people still play games to try and reach the goal although it may be slightly repetitive. One reason that keeps people wanting to succeed is that there are many rewards within a game. There is the chance to get new lives, improve to the next level, get bigger and better equipment, enlarge or gain new powers. There are constantly goals to be aiming for, so you keep playing despite the frustration of not succeeding quickly with the intention that there will be another reward soon.

Hallford and Hallford (2002) proposed four different rewards; glory, sustenance, access and facility. Applying each of these four models to games that I have played, a reward of glory can be found in Tetris in which there isn’t much impact but it is still pleasurable trying to calculate a high score and get as many rows as possible. A reward of sustenance can be seen in Doom II as there is a lot of character maintenance having to attack and shoot everything rewards are given such as new lives and armour. A reward of access is evident in ‘Robots’ where you have to go around the city finding diamonds and along the way there are rewards such as medical health, new armour and ammo. Rewards of facility is seen also in Robots as the better you do as you go up in level the robot gains new abilities and has more ammo.

In conclusion, whether it is within computer games or day to day life, humans strive for rewards, as the human brain is wired to seek them. This is why people keep playing games, wanting to succeed for the specific rewards that are there to gain.




BIBLIOGRAPHY

Author Unknown (Date Unknown) Rewards, Retrieved on the 5th March 2007 from the World Wide Web.
http://www.lhfm.salford.ac.uk/students/Stratman/glossary_ntor.htm


Further Reading

Cameron, C. (2003)Recognition Without Rewards, Portage and Main Press: London and New York.

Cameron, J. Pierce, D. (1997) Rewards and Intrinsic Motivation, Bergin Gervey: New Jersey.