Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 295)

Trigger Happy
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it is so much harder to get past the initial mechanical
demands.
Secondly, the optimal match of demands and skills
that we looked at earlier is the other factor that
contributes materially to the pleasurable loss of
selfconsciousness, because if the brain is having to
process a lot of information very quickly to keep up
with the videogame’s challenges, it is clearly going to
demote other considerations, such as keeping track of
clock time or noticing that a foot has gone numb, right
to the back burner until the challenges have been
overcome.
46
Videogames share deeply embedded aspects with
many other sorts of games through history, yet they
also share two components of pleasure with other
common activities, such as piano playing, that are not
usually considered “games” at all. (The videogame
combines aspects of play and performance that nudge it
in one sense nearer the family of sport. There are now
regular world videogaming championships at
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46 Now that we have established this highly physical aspect to videogaming
pleasure, by the way, it provides another nail in the coffin of the “interactive
storytelling” dream. Nolan Bushnell, the father of videogaming, made this
incisive point to me: “The big problem with interactive storytelling is a
basic conflict. When telling a story one wants the listener to abandon his
body and space and be swept along in a new place, time or world. When
you ask a person to make a decision, you push that person back into his own
body.”