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Revision as of 04:33, 18 May 2007
Power fantasy is the thing we do best in games. We excel at giving the player a feeling of power over their surroundings, at letting them feel the satisfaction of starting out weak and becoming powerful[1], until they are the king of the world, the ruler the universe, they have vanquished evil, saved the girl, and finally gotten to that really high ledge by exploding a rocket at their feet.
However, I think power fantasy is pretty cheap, and we need to eschew it and find better, deeper, more meaningful ways to entertain and compel players.
The New Yorker[2] had a David Denby review of the film, Seabiscuit. As usual, Denby writes a pretty good review. But one sentence stuck with me:
When a director exploits our hard-wired responses to pathos, he fails, so to speak, a test of honor.
I think he's totally right about pathos, and it's also exactly how I feel about power fantasy in games. Every time we use it, we fail a test of honor.
- ↑ Nicole Lazzaro writes about this stuff a lot. She uses the term Fiero in this context.
- ↑ I think it was the October, 2003 issue.