Games Should Be Like Female Orgasms

Gamers with Jobs has an excellent look at the pacing of games, and their resemblance to sexual response cycles. From the article: "The female sexual response cycle appears as a gradual (sometimes maddeningly so) upward slope from excitement to orgasm, with several 'false peaks' in the plateau region. Anyone who's ever performed cunnilingus while kneeling on a hardwood floor can attest to the validity of this representation. The male cycle differs radically. The transition from excitement to plateau in men is rather rapid, represented by a near-vertical line. The plateau stage is then almost horizontal for varying amounts of time (see: premature ejaculation) followed by another extremely rapid ascent into orgasm. Playing video games often reminds me of the above."

Comments

There's no news here... Just ask Bushnell

[Rahga]

There's a Nolan Bushnell interview linked to slashdot somewhere in the last two years where he talks about Atari's past and part of Breakout's design. He mentioned that one of the intentional goals, though the player didn't realize it, was to encourage the player to get the ball "stuck" so that the game would play by itself for a short while. The player gets a break from the paddle while watching the fireworks, feels a sense of accomplishment by getting the game to do that, and can get back into the game after that brief interlude.

The buildup to flow

[doc modulo]

I personally play Counter-Strike Source online mostly to reach a state of flow.
The article talks about the buildup within the game from start to finish.

His ideal buildup is also the best way to gain the altered state of conciousness of flow, although I'm not sure his goal was the same as mine. He was probably just talking about having a smooth experience without unwelcome distractions.

In his view, so as a man, playing video games should be like "playing with a women to reach her orgasm". He literally said he'd like to do the same thing over and over again. In other words, a very long plateau.

I suspect that women, on the other hand, want to play games more like Wario Ware. They get bored more quickly with doing one and the same thing over and over. They'd rather play with one concept, go: "ok I get it, what's next" and then move on to the nose-picking mini-game.

So maybe men would like games to be like female sexual arousal graphs, meaning repetition of comparable experiences to get closer to flow.
And women would like games to be more like male sexual arousal graphs, meaning quick intense fixes of one concept and then moving on the the next.

This is just my personal theory though.

Any women in the audience who can comment on flow and excitement graphs?

P.S. As a man, I figured out how to stay at the plateau level for as long as I want :D