i can't find it but i read a pretty good thing on zynga games that's fairly relevant. basically, the goal of the game isn't to provide you with entertainment while you're playing, but to provoke anxiety when you're not playing, and it's much more effective (playing as a treat vs playing so you don't feel like garbage). in terms of games themselves the masochist element is only appealing when you overcome it, i.e. completing the game without using weapons, dying but getting to the next level, only using the glass ball etc. i don't think DIFFICULTY is masochism if it has a reward

Can gaming be masochistic? Do you play games for the thrill of failure, or for the triumph of succeeding over a challenge? Do you get any buzz at all from dying in videogames? Does the rage that comes with throwing a control count as part of the buzz? What about sadism? Do you get any kind of release from inflicting virtual pain on your virtual enemies?

You're being too specific and narrow about the role of masochism in games - it's not a specifically the pain itself that is the enjoyment, rather the masochism emerges from the process of playing the game (the "gameplay process").

There's an entire genre of games where the core of the gameplay and the game experience relies on the games ability to frustrate and humiliate the player for their mistakes, and this is the genre I will mainly be analysing, through the extreme of I Wanna Be The Guy, and also Super Meat Boy, a somewhat mellower game. In addition, take "player" to mean the player of these games, assuming the usual archetype of someone who plays games to be challenged.

There's a related observation to make about the role of the game developer in this. The intentions of the IWBTG developer are clear - he wants to create a game that is as close to impossible to beat as possible. He designs a game to humiliate the player at every turn. In one of the first few screens, the player has to edge forward, avoiding deadly falling apples, only to then be hit by an apple that flies *up*, with no way for the player to know this beforehand. This is obviously sadistic - he enjoys creating a cruel game, and enjoys people playing his cruel game. So we have a sadistic developer looking for players for his game, and he finds our player. Our player implicitly assumes the opposite role of the masochist: the receiver of punishment.

In these games the player undertakes the task of conquering a game designed to make them fail in order to achieve gratification. Players of these games are constantly bombarded with reminders of their own failure, causing real mental anguish. This is the pain, degradation and humiliation of masochism.

This pain is not specifically what evokes gratification in the player, however - the player does not enjoy the specific failures during gameplay. But we have to frame this in the entire gameplay process, and in doing so we realise that this pain cannot be truly separated from the gratification of finally "beating" the game.

Taking SMB for example, we have a rather simple game, the main bulk of which is taken up by "failure events", moments in gameplay where the player fails. If we were to modify this game by making one single change: the removal of failure events (or specifically the challenges that cause that failure), the dynamics of the gameplay process change significantly. We now have a game that contains no challenge and no failure events. Since the gratification upon completing a game is dependent upon the challenges conquered throughout the gameplay process (simply: our player does not enjoy playing games that present no challenge), by removing those challenges the gratification is reduced if not eliminated altogether. That is, the player must willingly subject himself to pain in order to achieve gratification.

This shows the masochism blatantly - without the pain there is no gratification, therefore it is integral to the gratification. The gratification clearly does not come solely from beating the game, it has a significant portion reliant on pain.

Not only that, but this is described as masochism, a very serious disorder that affects a very small part of the population. It's completely nuts to conclude that someone must be a masochist because they died in a game and then said "hey, this game is fun, I think I'll try again".

Of course they are not literal masochists, but the dynamics of the player/game relationship are showing some prominent masochistic tendencies.

Here this is the flaw in your entire argument, right there. Masochism is the enjoyment of pain itself. But rather, you're saying that players accept the fact that they have to endure some pain (I wouldn't call it that, but I digress) in order to complete the game. But it's not about enjoying the pain itself, is it?

My argument also depends on the game being considered in its entirity - the entire gameplay process, which consists mainly of pain. The player is a masochist because the gratification would not come if there was no pain. The gratification is entirely dependent on the existence of pain, therefore the gratification is clearly a reaction: the player enjoys the pain.

For future reference a dictionary (and any other reasonable) definition of pain includes mental distress, and masochism includes various forms of mental distress, not just physical pain.

Every definition of masochism I saw specifically said physical pain, not just pain.  Just putting that out there.

Every definition of masochism I saw specifically said physical pain, not just pain.  Just putting that out there.

Look harder: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/masochism

Psychiatry . the condition in which sexual gratification depends on suffering, physical pain, and humiliation.

Suffering obviously encompasses mental suffering and humiliation is purely mental distress. It's absurd to claim that masochism is only about physical pain.

Can we not get into the definition of masochism? It's completely pointless because I think everyone knows what it means in this context.

sure

i can't find it but i read a pretty good thing on zynga games that's fairly relevant. basically, the goal of the game isn't to provide you with entertainment while you're playing, but to provoke anxiety when you're not playing, and it's much more effective (playing as a treat vs playing so you don't feel like garbage). in terms of games themselves the masochist element is only appealing when you overcome it, i.e. completing the game without using weapons, dying but getting to the next level, only using the glass ball etc. i don't think DIFFICULTY is masochism if it has a reward

that's a pretty good observation. game's goal is to change the players relation to games/the game itself...one thinks of homer...simpson. *audience looks astonishedly to the smugly smiling zietsche- NIETZCHSES SMILE FREEZES AS HE SAW LOU REED SMILING SMUGLY IN THE AUDIENCE*

it doesn't just mean physical pain. as a psychological condition, it also includes psychological pain, which includes humiliation, degradation etc. off topic but yeah that's why things like GIMP STUFF is also classed as sadomasochism (ridiculous example but its the only one i can think of off the top of my head)


edit: oops didnt see drules post there sorry pal

one thinks of...adom. *indie gamers in the assembly hall are swept down by a sudden wind aaaa these jokes are getting out of hand i gotta stop!!*

Can gaming be masochistic?

apparently!
 
i don't know, sadism/masochism seems like a sort of crude and unhelpful framework for talking about difficulty in games i think. or at least sort of unwieldy when it comes to dealing with the uh more playfully perverse sense of selfconsious ridiculousness that i think characterises this stuff. it's that sense of laughing out loud at insanely hard or wilfully obnoxious game design, like those fanmade mario levels on youtube or the fact that literally everything in i wanna be the guy wants you dead. it's like a raucous cartoon parody of "real" game design which involves some idea of uh fairness and rewarding skill and so on being turned upside down into an exaggerated burlesque of cruelty.
 
i dont know, this doesnt really account for the level of investment required for people to actually play and beat these things but i don't think degradation is appropriate either, if only because a lot of this stuff deliberately goes for that sense of being too ridiculous to be taken seriously. maybe its just that the only thing more ridiculous is if you really do take them seriously and play them as if they were regular games. (im not trying to dismiss this stuff as one big joke btw, if anything i wish more games had some sense of deliberately fucking around with convention and exaggerated obnoxiousness!)