Ergodic Video Games as Agonist of Masochism in Gamers

Abstract

Throughout their history, even though their purpose and function have essentially remained unchanged, video games have repeatedly changed their essence, from pioneering technical endeavors, through arcade machines, to thoroughly complex modern video games. At a certain stage of their development, video games were very difficult to complete, with one of the main reasons being that for many years games were primarily played on coin-operated arcade machines, so it was in developers' interest for the games to be challenging. However, there is a crucial difference between difficult video games and video games that we call ergodic video games. The essential difference is that ergodic video games (or video games with ergodic elements) require players to adopt a non-trivial approach, i.e., additional effort, skill, and dedication, and since ergodicity drastically changes the difficulty level of the game, it also requires certain character traits from players, in terms of readiness to respond to frustration with persistence rather than giving up, which often borders on a specific type of masochism. Therefore, ergodic video games are colloquially called masocore games, which is a portmanteau of the words "masochism" and "hardcore". This paper aims to explore the causality between ergodic video games and the existence of masochistic character traits in players who play them, as well as how such games, by combining pain and frustration on one side with pleasure and a sense of accomplishment on the other side, provide a gaming experience that is almost impossible to experience by playing classic, non-ergodic video games.