"Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."
-Henry Louis Mencken
Computer games should never stress us into unhappiness.
Here is where I believe games for fun place without violating my authoritarian mandate of love:
1. Bonding. Computer games maximize fun; therefore, they provide terrific bonding experiences.
The games industry is following this idea more than ever. The best single player game of 2007 was a few hours long, and multiplayer was designed to clock in more hours than singleplayer. This year you have seen cooperative gameplay promoted like mad, the super example being Left 4 Dead. The industry has learned that people will spend more for multiplayer. So there.
But, do games like Fallout 3 get a pass? What about the oncoming StarCraft 2 trilogy of 90 singleplayer missions?
Those games would require gamers to do some serious soul searching under my asshole system of affection and heavy petting. How would we motivate our friends and family and lovers and pets and alcoholic, business buddies to accompany us on those great hedonistic(ly awesome) adventures?
For those who can't play them socially (no person next to you, no switching between players) the answer is-
2. Recreation. But not for mere pleasuring of yourself. I hope you strive for jobs and people that you will derive great pleasure from to the point where you won't need much beyond sufficient amounts of exercise. But somewhere between here and there, you may become bored to shit; and hedonistic activity may be the best medicine - Specifically, killing 12-year olds on XBOX Live using a mouse and keyboard instead of an XBOX 360 controller may be the best medicine.
(Make sure you get enough exercise. Exercise relieves so much stress, in a way 'pleasures' don't, as long as they don't take too much of your time.)
3. Games are your profession. If it's your job, you will likely need to play enough games to do well.
And the next is related to this-
4. Self-exploration. You may love games. You may love'm enough to make them part of your future somehow, maybe as a profession, maybe as a tool to help people with.
I understand you have done this already, but this defends those who haven't, young and old.
And that's it!
It seems ironic that what I am promoting is a temperance. This is a kick in the frenulum to the way we tend to play, make love, dance, have fun. It's a whack in the weenis to our capitalist, you-must-experience-many-pleasures-or-you're-an-unhappy-loser culture.
But with gaming designed for maximizing fun, these are the only ways I can think of that use gaming for fun to maximize happiness.
It all comes down to time management. Among the "middle class" I have found that our greatest happiness killer is negative stress, and negative stress in the U.S. and many other countries is caused most often by this common mishandling of our self-management:
poor time management.
So play. I hope this doesn't discourage any of you from 'hedonistic' gaming. I hope this writing promotes better play sessions for you. And if you disagree with any of this, please feel free to dissent in the nice 'comments' section below you stupid wankers.
And to game designers: please make new, interesting, non-shitty games.
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