Abstract:
Imagine a community with thousands of people sitting at
machines playing games for hours. What makes it fun? Is it virtual
reality? Is it engaging narrative? Is it multiplayer interaction?
Actually, it's none of the above. The community is Foxwoods and the
machines are slots. I'll bet that slots are the most popular and
profitable machine game of all time - more than any modern computer
game. I also think that research and development in digital media has
not done much to advance a scientific understanding of fun in any game.
So I cut to the chase, dissecting the aesthetic experience using
mathematical analyses and psychological experiments. I look at
gambling, music and artwork. I show how formal notions of Bayesian
probability and Shannon entropy can explain and predict feelings of
pleasure. I have some demos to make the math fun. I guarantee you have
never seen fun like this before.