Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy manual You win again

Trigger Happy

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

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