

Games involve constantly experiencing failure. So why are they fun? - porter
http://www.oliverburkeman.com/blog/posts/games-involve-constantly-experiencing-failure-so-why-are-they-fun

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onion2k
For a game to be fun, it needs to give the player a sense that they are
progressing ... getting a higher score, advancing to a higher level, seeing
the next bit of the map, whatever. To play a game and score more than last
time is success, even if your character ultimately fails by "dying". That
reward is why we keep playing; if a game didn't give you the impression that
you were getting further you'd feel like you're failing and soon give up. If
you turned the score counter off in Tetris no one would play it for very long.

