Sid Meier divides game enjoyment up into four categories: Easy Fun, Hard Fun, Relaxing Fun, and Social Fun. "Relaxing Fun" is basically what the GP post was ta

Sid Meier divides game enjoyment up into four categories: Easy Fun, Hard Fun, Relaxing Fun, and Social Fun. "Relaxing Fun" is basically what the GP post was talking about -- a diversion, something you do to pass the time, which is typically not completely passive but mostly so. A lot of sandbox-type games do this well, where you're mostly just sort of looking at the scenery and derping around and having a good time without being particularly threatened or challenged. "Hard Fun" is nearly the opposite -- it's competition and challenges and stuff that gets your heart rate up. It's "play to 20, win by 2" and you end up finishing 25-23 in a high-stakes match to improve your global rating [0]. It's beating a level in a single life when it used to take you 5 or 10 lives. It's shaving 3 seconds off of your speedrun by perfecting a tricky maneuver. "Easy Fun" is things like shiny in-game treasure, achievements, even satisfying sounds like the Mario coin pickup sound. It's stuff that makes you smile just for playing and making ordinary progress. "Social fun" is, of course, anything that connects you with other people -- playing cooperatively or competitively, or even talking about the game outside of the game itself. (I met my wife on a video game BBS 18 years ago.) [0] A Descent match between two of my friends: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Mq6hyfFAo4&index=2&list=PLoqgd0t_KsN6-B8RELj9FKd8BXaAQ7sfM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Mq6hyfFAo4&index=2&list=PLo...