The Art of Failure

failure is an integral element of the overall experience of playing a game

Games, depending on how we play them, give us a license to display anger and frustration on a level that we would not otherwise dare express, but some displays will still be out of bounds, rude, or socially awkward.

poor losers are not chastised for showing anger and frustration, but for showing anger and frustration in the wrong way.

motivate us to play more in order to escape the same inadequacy, and the feeling of escaping failure (often by improving our skills) is central to the enjoyment of games.

Games promise us a fair chance of redeeming ourselves.

when you fail in a game, it really means that you were in some way inadequate. Such a feeling of inadequacy is unpleasant for us, and it is odd that we choose to subject ourselves to it.

This is what games do: they promise us that we can repair a personal inadequacy—an inadequacy that they produce in us in the first place.

Games do not purge these emotions from us—they produce the emotions in the first place.

game players have chosen to engage in an activity in which they are almost certain to fail and feel incompetent, at least some of the time.

why does this enjoyment contain at its core something that I most certainly do not enjoy?