Creating authentic experience's

In today's lecture were looked at experiences and authenticity and how this is used in the world around us. We looked at a lecture by Joseph Pine who talks about this and uses examples such as Disney. He goes on to say how these create experiences, he says that Disney is a fake real, its fake in what they say, its not really a 'magical land' so its not true to itself but its real in the emotions and experiences that people get when they visit Disney land, witch gives them an 'authentic experience' each authentic experience differs from person to person but most children go to Disney thinking of a magical experience and they will get a 'magical experiance' because of the surroundings and the environment which is 'fake'

We then looked how this could be applied to games. Games aren't real and they don't claim to be, gamers except this and immerse themselves within that 'fake world' and create there own experiences from that game weather the game designers intended it or not. Example if the game designers create a visually appealing and mechanically well thought out game that suits that person who is playing the game they should have a great experience, something they will truly remember and even possibly share there experience. If the game designers didn't touch up bugs or glitches with the game then the gamer will most likely have a negative response of experience, although this varies again sometimes this can create an epic experience where the gamers could find it almost comical and take something away from the game that the game designers didn't intentionally want to happen.

We were then asked a series of questions related about our own experiences of playing games, what was one of our favourite moments playing a game? how did it make us feel? and why?

My response was when i played Fallout 3, i thought about at the beginning where you are contained in small space, then shortly after you are revealed to a vast open wasteland where you can literary just go where you choose. Now i thought that was pretty epic and introduced many emotions such as freedom, relief, excitement as whats out there, but i though of another part of the game that was much more memorable to me. As you wonder throughout the game you find yourself alone a lot of the time, being attacked when your not expecting it and with no one around for you to speak to or have much emotional attachment to. So when you come across the Dog companion in the game you have a great sense of loneliness, but then because you have a companion that changes, you are no longer alone you have someone to watch your back and help each other out. You also begin to grow attached to these companions you don't want them to get hurt in combat or killed so more emotions get introduced. Again these are my experiences, these vary from person to person, another person might of just left the dog and didn't want someone following you around or something in your way but i felt a companion was a great part to fight the loneliness of scouring the wasteland for ammo and supplies.

As a games designer these 'authentic experiences' can be introduced witch significantly improve game-play, it gives the player new feelings, emotions and choices with the game and makes them feel more immersed. Experiences are a powerful approach to making a game, in whatever way some type of experience and emotion will come from any game weather its boredom, anger, confusion or pure joy and happiness. Again it is a hard thing to judge because each and every person has different opinions and different views to what makes them enjoy games.

References:
1. TED. Joseph Pine (2004) What consumers want. retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/joseph_pine_on_what_consumers_want.html