The interesting thing about fun and video games is that it is not immediately evident that a game is fun, meaning certain games have the capacity to be quite intense to a sometimes problematic extent. A particular game world might demand total concentration lest the player have his experience ended quickly. The fun part arrives when the player can function within the game world through the apparatus (console or arcade cabinet) and controller in an almost seamless fashion. This is the moment of immersion, defined by Janet Murray as the sensation of being surrounded by a completely other reality that takes over all of our attention, our whole perceptual apparatus, is complex because the what is being immersed is not physical rather our minds and bodies are recapitulating the same game in different but parallel ways. The somewhere in the middle between the parallel is affect. This middle functions as a reference point, the place from which emotion might be exhibited or not. The body and mind could quite possibly have different experiences of the same image.

I recall from my childhood many times when a game would incense me so violently that inevitably a controller would get thrown against the wall, not because I was necessarily angry at the game rather it was because the game was disrupting my enjoyment. Throwing the controller then becomes a physical gesture of disconnection from the journey into the game world. There is no comparable gesture in the game world outside of purposely tormenting the avatar, which is relatively pointless since once the console is at rest, the avatar is there with no recollection of any previous agony inflicted upon it.

The next day that same controller would get picked up and that same game that angered me the day before would be played again in the hopes of enjoying playing again. Often, the most addictive (and frustrating) games are the games that allow a player to feel that if they just play a little longer they can master that elusive challenge, the mastery of that fight, battle, or level that continues to annoy the player is somehow always within reach. The mere playing of the game should teach us how to get beyond each obstacle. As video game designer Raph Koster tells us: all good games teach the skills needed in order to continue.

For any of the above events to occur, the game must be experienced. Each time a game is played, it is a little, or in some cases, a lot different. What this means for the player is a game while fun and exciting one day could be boring and dull the next because the mood may be different. Whether or not we have fun with a game has a lot to do with personal engagement and how the game interacts with us. A fairly simple example would be playing Solitaire on a personal computer – one day the cards are falling right and clearing the board is a snap, but the next day the computer could be out to get you and not allowing even one win. Enjoyment quickly turns to frustration, fun has transformed to boredom maybe even annoyance. Yet, all is forgotten a day later when Solitaire can be fun once again. However, Solitaire is a closed-off game, or one that does not try to exhibit a game world beyond the game itself, so while playing Solitaire is fun due to the ever changing order of cards and easily understood rule set, the affect elicited is less intense due to lack of either narrative engagement, easily recognizable characters, or fast-paced gameplay. Winning a game of Solitaire is exciting, of course, but the experience of video Solitaire pales in comparison to other video games given the lack of an unique game world in which to become lost.

Video games are appealing precisely because they can elicit an entire range of affective responses. A pleasurable game must do more than simply stroke the player's ego through puzzle solving and level progression, moreover a game must also give the player a certain amount of freedom within its form and rules. Further, winning and losing are at the foundation of nearly all games, but both outcomes are functions of the overall experience of video games, so rather than saying we play video games to win, a more precise reason would be we play games to experience what it means to win or lose.

The question then becomes: what games offer the the most memorable experiences? Obviously, this is a totally subjective question, but nonetheless we play games for these moments. In fact, these moments are the formative moments in our gaming history. We play games within a genre (1st person shooter, basketball simulation, RPGs) because we've enjoyed other games that have come before the new ones. Each game has a familial lineage. And it is through this historical context that we gain the total gaming experience.

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