Just a Gwai Lo fun within prescribed limits [?]

Tom Coates: “fun is learning without pressure, and that therefore games matter - presumably because learning is de facto a good thing. But what if you're learning a system or a landscape with no transferable value - what if a specific game presents you with a structure designed to purely generate the sensation of perpetual fun by short-circuiting the learning impulse and misdirecting it into valueless territories? There would be a memetic advantage in being a game that could be intoxicating in that way without requiring that people learn skills that were transferable elsewhere. For a start, real-world skills are harder to develop and perhaps less short-term satisfying. Secondly, a process that teaches you real-world skills would result in you evolving and changing. A game that could short-circuit your learning instinct wouldn't have to do that. There would be no reason for you to leave.”