Friday, June 26, 2009

Does Winning a Game Make You Like It?

I don't like console games. The kid got a GameCube last week and has been playing Medal of Honor or something on it. I tried to play with him but (a) I'm really bad it, and (b) I have no ambition to be better. I don't want to play any more. A similar thing happened on the PS3 as well but I can't even remember the name of the game. I've also noticed the same problem with board games - Bucket Brigade / Honeybears was really dull, Niagara annoys me to the point of hysteria, I enthusiastically dislike El Grande... yet I really enjoy many abstracts and word games which are ranked down around 4000 at BGG.

What I'm wondering is, do I dislike games because I suck at them, or do I suck at them because I dislike them? I don't know if I can tell. I suck at Chess and Go as well, but they get some degree of respect from me. I can't locate any highly-ranked game that I dislike despite having won at it, except maybe Railway Tycoon... and that loses most points because it was too long. To be fair, though, and game I don't like I don't get experience at and so I'm not in a position to win.

I'd like to better understand why I don't like some games, but I can't think of insightful experiments.

6 comments:

gerrod said...

How on earth could you dislike the PS3?! Have you played Resistance 2? Dead Space? Prototype? inFamous? It's amazing!!

Friendless said...

I'm waiting for Scrabble and deduction games on the PS3 :-).

ekted said...

I tend to like games more initially if I get crushed. It means there's a lot of challenge ahead.

Pawnstar said...

I can't really go either way with this one; I've played games I have never ever come close to winning and they're great, I've won games I thought were dire because the win felt too easy, empty or wrong.

I've marked down many games because even though I felt great about playing them others in the group found a poor game, and I felt their reasoning was valid.

But winning should make us like a game, at least because you can generally tell you got it. I mean, it's alright to keep trying indefinitely, but if you're never winning and you know why then it's difficult to tell what there is to like about a game.

I know, it's a simplistic way to look at it; but it works. That's why I gave up on waterskiing.

Maria said...

I suck at Chess.

I like Set, even though I've never won, but I still get it. It;s just that Mr Coffee gets it better :) However with Chess it eludes me; I'm sure I could study strategy more if I wanted to; I mean I could read books on it or study the board more but I've only had a few go's and mainly the way I play is very bad. I look at maybe one to two moves ahead and concentrate on just one area and sometimes I forget which pieces do what, and I tend to think about my pieces more than my opponent's. Not good. It's just that I haven't really got used to thinking any further than that. In that sense I can't enjoy it because I know inevitably I'll lose and also I'm not really thinking much about the game.

With waterskiing and sports I think there is another element for me ... public humiliation ...! and physical pain! If I suck at a physical sport which for most physical sports I do it puts me off because do I realy want to pay x number of dollars for a leotard or a swimsuit or whatever outfit, plus equipment to go falling on my face in front of a group of people and also get perhaps the side of my body bashed in?

At least I am a bit more tempted to fail at Chess a few times because I do have a basic board and the cost of losing is not so bad (and you can try to study up on it and practice by yourself or with a computer without a crowd of people laughing their asses off at you).

However for burning flab it just isn't quite the same thing ...

Maria said...

Oh I have to just write this post because the word verification is the same as the suburb I live in. It's an omen, it might bring me good luck!

*make a wish*