Dictionary Definition of "fun" - "as a source of amusement or enjoyment"
"We may not be able to describe fun, but we know it when we have it"
"What is the Funativity Quotient?" This is what was asked by Steve Arnold when making games - means where does the fun/entertainment come from?
Palaeolithic Pastimes:
"Refined Sugar Syndrome" - basically the change from hunter gatherer ancestors seeking rich ripe fruit for a sweet tooth which was actually good for them compared to modern day where sweet tooth's are beaten by processed sugars attempting to make the taste of a healthy, fruit alternative. This theory (RSS) is also used within a modern game industry "as the technology behind them has in fact made possible a concentrated, particularly potent play experience that is both very new in its expression and very old in it's origins."
"The drive to play is fundamental to humanity"
"Anyone who thinks there is a difference between education and entertainment doesn't know a thing about either" - Marshall McLuhan, communications theorist.
"Our modern fast-changing global culture has put even more emphasis on the ability to keep learning."
Type A Personalities - "People who are driven to work at survival tasks every moment available"
alternative to above are people who appreciate and feel the need to rest more than others and enjoy resting compared to "hunting"
"We must do a few things to survive. Everything else is entertainment" Marvin Minsky, AI expert.
The Natural Funativity theory: (Combination of Natural selection from Darwin and Steve Arnold's theory of Funativity Quotient)
Physical Fun:
Our primary instinct is survival and that is why most games and forms of entertainment focus mostly on survival to capture their audiences attention and survival instincts.
RSS Example - "The desire to gain skill in quickly escaping possible predators, animals or human, or chasing down prey has become abstracted into high-speed racing not only on foot but on bicycles, motorcycles, cars, sail boats, speedboats and pretty much any other conveyance."
We didn't inherit from our ancestors to build extremely fast cars, bikes etc. but we inherited the primal erge to move faster by any means.
"Casinos packed with slot machines recreate berry-picking, abstracted and refined into an RSS-related compulsion."
"Improving ones knowledge of immediate surroundings is a survival skill." As well as the use of "tools" dating back to prehistoric times and if incorporated in most modern day games whether they be weapons or tools to build or cars, flight simulators etc.
Also the use of keyboards and/or console controllers also improve our primal needs of hand eye coordination.
New software like Eye Toy/Kinect are increasing the primal social survival skills of the players who use the system with friends, neighbours, family etc.
Social Fun:
"Cell phones, instant messaging, and GPS - based games that put people in contact with each other in the real world are likely to further the social aspects of video games."
"We are tribal creatures forming groups and constantly watching and responding to each other."
"The development of language in its spoken form has added levels of indirection to our ability to learn survival skills and key information"
The use of modern technology now a day's is further aiding the basic survival skill of story telling as stories that were told and spread gave insight and taught others what to do and how to survive further, now through modern technology like films, TV, magazines, books, printers etc we are able to physically see the stories that we are told and this further aids our survival skills for example watching a documentary about child birth gives us the visual insight that would have been word of mouth millions of years ago.
The increase of tech over the years is just going to further increase the social interactivity to higher heights.
"Use the organ your using right now in games to make the game a good one without the need for a story or social interaction like Tetris which has no story or any ties to our ancestors"
Mental Fun:
"Our large brains are the answer"
"Even though we use our intelligence with physical and social fun, there is an entire set of entertainment activities including quite a few video games which focuses primarily on mental fun."
“Our intelligence, hand and tool abilities, and language all
complement each other and it is
difficult to separate out how they all developed in the
historical record. Our larger brains and
intelligence certainly made it possible for our ancestors to
make and use increasingly more complex
and varied tools and carry on more useful conversations. Our
tool use and ability to coordinate our
hunting and gathering through conversation has obviously
helped to make our ancestors more
efficient as hunters and gatherers, which in turn let them
find enough food to support their large
brains (which take a disproportionate share of our food
energy). And our language ability has let us
pass on knowledge about making tools, and has helped us
survive socially and cooperate to
compensate for some of the challenges that very large brains
have caused, like difficult childbirth and children who remain helpless much
longer than other young.”
“Although some people have aspirations to create a formula
or even a program to churn out game concepts or to exhaustively analyze and
evaluate games, I think this is an aberrant side effect of the fact that game
development is a multidisciplinary craft that includes a lot of programmers and
software engineers. Video games are software, but are also at heart very
concerned with creative and subtle psychological points, and like novels,
plays, and film I expect that people will reject any overly mechanical attempts
to codify them.”
"The essence of intelligence is the perception and manipulation of patterns" e.g. Tetris as a key example
The literal use of Tetris is obviously not helpful, to more, rotate and drop shapes but the ability drawn from it to view and act upon patterns quickly and improve our mental capacity is aiding in over survival skills such as " quickly recognizing and acting on patterns is useful"
"The survival benefit is not in the actual collecting of stamps or CD's, but in the mental fun of recognizing patterns. It is a workout for the brain."
Blended Fun: (The combination of the three types of fun stated earlier) e.g. Everquest as it incorporates; physical aspects (keyboard and mouse input), with simulated movement and combat, social aspects of teamwork, conversation etc.
Applying Natural Funativity:
"By the tying game play to these key aspects of hunting, gathering, exploration, social interaction and status, and pattern perception and we can capture the interest of large numbers of players and make games more fun."
"When a possible game feature can be measured against its ability to deliver on physical, social, or mental fun as described here"
Instead of just using aspects from previous, well sold, popular games and risk adding concepts that are boring, the understanding of the games concepts is much more efficient as us as games designers can see and use what parts of a game work well and which don't.
Others on fun:
"I have yet to find any significant exceptions... to entertainment explained by natural funativity."
Future Funativity:
"I also fully expect that we will
increasingly find common ground with other developers of all forms of
entertainment, as with genetics, once one looks beneath the surface it is
apparent we have more in common than our surface features would suggest. I certainly
expect to see the principles of Natural Funativity used increasingly to make
games more fun. And who knows - some day we may even learn how to define and
measure that elusive Funativity Quotient"
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