“FUN IN A DIFFERENT WAY”

This essay considers how sustained immersion in anyone aspect of play is a necessary goal in gaming and proposes the idea that we carefully examine how shifting, and sometimes even fleeting, changes in attention can comprise positive aspects of the gamer experience. After considering the idea of non-immersive play as a possible goal that people pursue, the idea of rhythm in frame-switching is presented as an example of the type of productive analysis that this line of thinking opens up. The central point is to consider play as it actually occurs and to attempt, as much as possible to take a session of play on its own terms and not on terms that we might externally impose upon it.