Week 9 Reading Notes - Natural Funativity

What makes a game fun? The dictionary defines 'fun' as a source of amusement or enjoyment, but that's not very helpful. Only recently have we started to make progress on defining fun.

What is the funativity quotient?

Paleolithic Pastimes

We share basic drives for survival and reproduction with our fellow creatures. In addition, humans, as well as other primates have a strong dependence on the social interactions that establish and maintain our place in our families and communities

We have to consider the way humans lived tens of thousands of years ago and more to see the survival significance of many of our genetic preferences, as scientists agree that our genes were mainly shaped during the time of our hunter-gatherer ancestors.

Refined Sugar Syndrome (RSS) describes the way humans have always had a desire for sweet things; in the past, our ancestors would always look for fruit and berries which were sweet, but in recent history that has turned against us because of the advancements in sugar-refining. That initial instinct has now turned on us and makes us desire unhealthy amounts of sugar.

RSS also applies to many other things we do for entertainment that have become less helpful in modern society. Video games is an example, technology has allowed us to create a potent play experience that is both very new in its expression and very old in its origins.

When you look at all human entertainment, you see that it is really about learning survival and reproduction skills, as well as the necessary social rules and behaviours.

We all need rest between working; it has been that way since our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Simple genetic and cultural variation ensures that some people prize rest more than others, and we have different types of personality cauterisation because of that.

The evolution theory suggests that diversity is an important survival trait in the long run, so that there will be people who prefer the mainstream, most popular approaches to survival, but also people with more obscure preferences.

The Natural Funativity Theory

Natural Funativity is mixing Darwin’s theory of natural selection and Steve Arnold’s question of “What is the Funativity Quotient?”

Physical Fun

When our survival is threatened it gets our full attention, so games and other media use this theme a lot to get attention.

Anything that involves threats to survival and the successful (or unsuccessful) attempts to counter those threats is likely to get a large audience.

The desire to gain skill in quickly escaping possible predators has stuck with us, in the form of high-speed racing not only on foot but on all sorts of vehicles.

A lot of games get surprisingly popular when they’re based around hunting, one of our oldest pastimes. Even games which involve gameplay mechanics such as catching fish get very popular on mobile devices.

In the same way relating to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, games which involve gathering also get popular. Casinos have slot machines to recreate berry-picking in an abstract way, and a lot of us make collections of different items. Ever since Pac Man started gobbling little dots, we've moved on to collecting hearts, coins, and stars.

Exploration is another popular skill which has made its way into gaming; a lot of players enjoy exploring their immediate surroundings to find out more about different aspects of the game they’re playing.

Many games are directly focused on use of tools, from the craft-oriented play of single- and multi-player roleplaying games to the ubiquitous use of hand weapons in many game types. It's interesting to note that so much of Physical Fun is tied in some way to our upright posture that freed the use of hands millions of years ago.

Social Fun

Evolution also focuses on the issue of reproduction and the associated matters of meeting and attracting mates. In the past video games weren’t associated in any way with attracting mates, but in recent years, games that are cell phone, instant messaging, and GPS-based that put people in contact in the real world are likely to help social aspects of video games.

Storytelling was our first type of virtual reality, and is now so much a part of everyday human culture that we take it for granted. The oldest surviving stories and epic poems show that matters of survival and finding and keeping mates have been of great interest for as long as stories have existed.

Mental Fun

We practice and improve our mental abilities in our leisure time just as we exercise our muscles and build social relationships. The use of language and other means of communication has always made it possible to learn to use tools and has helped us survive socially and cooperate together to overcome challenges.

Intelligence-based games and pattern recognition are good examples of mental fun. Games such as Bejeweled require a good sense for pattern recognition, and toys or pastimes like crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, or physical puzzles like Rubic's Cube also use pattern recognition. Even appreciating music is a form of mental fun, since music is patterned sound just as poetry and song are patterned words.

My Thoughts:

I think an interesting example of survival and hunting in modern games would be Minecraft, a digital indie game which has had a very surprising boom in popularity. The game has no real set 'goals', but instead the player can do what they like within the game world. They can build, hunt, explore and survive through the night with no ending to the game.

Overall I felt this article was an interesting look on the meaning of fun. I find the that relating games design and 'fun' to our ancestors is a good idea, as we need an understanding of our human genetics and pastimes to really understand where 'fun' came from.