[crAzerk]

This is an entry for the contest stated here

What makes you fall in (or out of) love with a game?

Is it the dazzling graphics? Is it the competitive but socially bonded community? Is it some aspect of the game that you really enjoy, such as the engaging lore?




For me, a game needs to have
1) Sufficient Complexity
2) Positive Hedonic Value

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1) Sufficient Complexity
A game cannot be too easy otherwise I won't enjoy it. That could be why I steer clear of grindy RPGs and don't find games with simple mechanics too engaging.


Starcraft 2 was a good example of a complex, layered game. There are many layers of the game you need to perfect in order to do well :
There's the basic scissors-paper-stone of knowing what to get to counter what (game knowledge)
There's the mechanical ability to execute what you want to do (macro/micro)
There's the cognitive demands of multitasking and knowing timings, etc



All in all, the game provided sufficient cognitive stimulation to keep me engaged and wanting more.

So why did I stop playing Starcraft? This happened when HotS came out. I still bought the game, completed the game, yadaayada. Even played one ladder game for the sake of it.

I stopped playing because I found the game to be TOO cognitively demanding. And I realized this wasn't just after HOTS (which required the learning of new units, counters, combos, micro, strategy) but something I felt since the end of WoL.

After every game I was drained. Each game of Starcraft was too tiring. I wasn't enjoying it anymore. The complexity of the game had backfired and made me fall out of love with it. I just wasn't getting sufficient hedonic pleasure from it

2) Positive Hedonic Value
Hedonic value, simply put, is how good (versus how bad) something makes you feel.
For example, you eat a good tasting slice of pizza but get a stomachache - you feel bad but the satisfaction of the taste compensated for it and you had an overall positive experience.
On the other hand, if the pizza tasted bad AND you got a stomachache, its clear that the pizza gave you negative hedonic value.

While it was satisfying to win games in SC2, the fatigue/exhaustion from the mental/physical exertion, coupled with the sour taste of occasional defeat meant that the overall hedonic value of SC2 had become negative. I wasn't enjoying the game anymore.

I moved on to League of Legends (I'm going to ignore any flame baits comparing DoTA and LoL or how LoL sucks), a game I found fun, satisfying, and engaging.

Different champions had different skill caps, and different roles had different cognitive requirements (e.g. laners are focusing on how to out-CS and harass your opponents; junglers are focusing on which lane to go to based on which objectives are up AND their best guess of where the enemy jungler was)
The game also had a way to make you feel strong and powerful, with killing streaks, good score lines, playing a team fight well, etc.



The game needed you to think well and focus, but was not too cognitively demanding that I felt drained after each game, and also made me feel satisfied enough after each game. I had fallen love with LoL.

But what goes up must come down.

Being a team-oriented game meant much of the game outcome was dependent on how well your teammates play relative to the opponent. It wasnt like SC2 where your own performance determined the outcome.
As a result, toxic players abound, people who frequently blamed their team for losing, picking on underperforming individuals to rationalize their losses, creating a hugely negative game experience.

These were not all that frequent, but CAN happen in succession (e.g. 5 games in a row w really toxic teammates) which is very demoralizing.

Games become a babysitting experience where I had to get toxic players to shut up (in a civil way) and get underperforming players to keep up (though some are lost causes) while I had to suck it up. I found this particularly draining, since on top of this I have to ensure I'm personally playing at my best. The hedonic value of LoL began to dip towards the negative, and I began to play LoL less and less.


I don't really know how to end this writeup, so I'll just wrap up with my current state.

I managed to grow accepting and learnt to cope with toxic/bad players. I accepted them for part of the game, and accepted that there will be games which I just can't win because of them. This acceptance meant the negative hedonic pull was considerably mitigated, and I began enjoying LoL again.

TLDR - I like challenging games but I play games to enjoy myself too. Once a game becomes negative in hedonic value, I tend to stop playing it.

The rest of the post basically elaborates on these points : what they mean and why they're important to me, and how these factors influenced two games ive played, SC2 WoL and LoL.


If you don't like reading, you can skip that and just go straight to posting a reply, I'd love to hear what you think.
What makes you love a game and why?
And if you go further, what makes you stop loving the game?