F o u r : Fun and
Games
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essential to becoming fully captured by the flow at the behavioral (vicarious) level. The story line and engrossing exposition of The Man Who Wasn 't There enhanced the vicarious pleasure of the film, but noticing the photography caused the voyeuristic pleasure to interrupt with internal commentary ("Howdid he do that?" "Look at the magnificent lighting," and so on) and throw the vicarious pleasure off track. Yes, you should be able to go back afterward and marvel at how a film was done, but this should not intrude upon the experience itself.
Video Games Overslept, woke at 8:00. Only time for a quick coffee before the carpool arrives. The kitchen is disgusting, didn't clean up after last night's little party. Need a bath, but no time (the bathroom's flooded anyway from the broken sink I never got around to fixing). Got to work late and in horrible shape, was demoted as a result. Got home at 5:00,the repo man promptly showed up and repossessed my television because I forgot to pay my bills. My girlfriend won't speak to me because she saw me flirting with the neighbor last night.
Did you realize that this quotation is the description of a game? Not only does it feel like real life, but a bad life at that. Why would anyone think it was a game? Aren't games supposed to be fun? Well, not only is it a description of a game, it is a best-selling one called "The Sims." Will Wright, the designer and inventor of the Sims, explained that this was a typical day in the life of a game character, as developed by a beginning player. The Sims is an interactive simulated-world game, otherwise known as a "God" game or sometimes "simulated life." The player acts like a god, creating characters, populating their world with houses, appliances, and activities. In this game, the player does not control what the game characters do. Instead, the player can only set up the environTLFeBOOK