Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 296)

Trigger Happy
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which contestants from all over the world compete for
prizes of hundreds of thousands of dollars.) But now we
have uncovered some sources of videogame pleasure, it
remains to be seen just how that pleasure is
manipulated. How, in other words, does the machine
play the man?
You win again
Videogames give you their full attention. They don’t
ignore you or say they’re busy; they concentrate with
rock-solid focus on what you “say” to them through the
mechanical interface. (Like psychotherapists, only at a
smaller cost and with more quantifiable fun— Eliza, as
we have seen, did actually take the role of a therapist in
a text-based “conversation” with the player.) The game
is extremely interested in you.
Videogames also exemplify perfectly a general
aspect of play: the temporary perfection, unattainable in
the physical world, of absolute order. Nolan Bushnell
says much the same thing: “There is a completely
controllable and understandable universe that is
predictable. Much more controllable than real life.” A
videogame obeys a certain set of predictable rules of
action, even if half the fun is finding out their
unpredictable effects in particular situations. Martin