It’s on between Rev vs Jaffee…

Imagine that games contained advertising such as this:

The ESRB promisses the following listed “moments” are The guaranteed universal psychologically emotional reactions (GUPERS) for this game:

• 2 heartbreaking moments
• 5 hilarious punchlines
• 10 arousing moments
  • 2 hard-ons (for males)
• 3 I-fucking-hate-this
• 7 moments of Enlightenment/Clarity
• 2 possible moments of closure

…

Just heard destructoids Anthony Burch and David Jaffee’s discussion. I’m used to listening to David Jaffe in a ranty/bloggy mode; him not making too much sense while still appealing to my emotional side (Dude, you curse a lot and I LOVE that) in regards to games. In this case, his arguments were very solid, and I feel I agree with his stance, not his conclusions necessarily (though, if his conclusions were reduced to his games, then I’d just have to agree… for the most part). I understand What Rev Rant says, I agree with him too… I even approach students with Jenova Chen’s Ideology on emotions and games (a very similar stance to Rev’s), still, Occam’s razor tends to win. Fun is the simplest explanation to why we play games; therefore, it’s the easiest reason to present games to others, “cause it’s fun” vs, “cause it’ll make you feel like when you first had your heart broken”!

Us, as a human beings capable of understanding other peoples drama, conflict, pain, life, etc. I’d like to pride myself with the ability to understand how “fun” is pleasant, but so is “growth”; an aspect that has to do (somewhat) with understanding one’s place in the world, and one’s relationship with life; an aspect that is very much explored when “pain” – an opposite of fun – is felt.

I wouldn’t tell people, “it’s awesome to fall in love, especially when you get heartbroken!”.

I would share that being in love feels accomplished, not fun; mostly, because fun gets taken away when the first tears leave your eyes. In retrospect, it’s ok to share with others how you felt great when falling in love, but you’d be a bad story teller, a bad human being, and a liar if you were to tell that person, “heartbreak… it ain’t no big thing”.

So sure, knowing that certain things to feel are pleasant… and fun, is great! Learning how to soften a blow for the brokenhearted feels altruistic… a feeling many humans don’t commonly seek.

Fall in love, go ahead, it’s fun… be careful, though! heartbreak is karma auditing your tax return.

In other words, Jaffee says,

• don’t pretend what we have doesn’t deliver.
• Be true to the axioms we’ve found so far.
• If what we have works… expand it!

Burch says:

• Seek more than Occam’s razor
• Learn to live with non winning conditions (an aspect of life)
• expand from what we have, it’ll (probably) work.

I couldn’t agree more with either. Here is where you make your own conclusions.