"You can't help shouting and yelling": fun and social interaction in Super Monkey Ball

Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any forms or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, filming, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holders. 1 An American survey from 2001 shows that 38% of the consoles are placed in the living room and 21% of the consoles in the family room. In other numbers: 3 out of 5 consoles are placed in a space meant for socialising. ABSTRACT This paper examines the relation between social interaction and fun in multi-player console gaming contexts. It points to the fruitfullness of integrating game studies and game sociology with cultural studies of television and video use in order to explain both the framing and (social) use of console games and the fun of playing them. A prestudy of the relation between social interaction and fun in the playing of the game Super Monkey Ball reveals that there is a close relation between gaming skills, the gaming situation as a pleasurable and relieving social activity and the experience of fun. INTRODUCTION " Super Monkey Ball is just such a fun game to play " , an otherwise non-gaming colleague once told me and his comment is what motivated the research described in this paper. It grew out of two informal observations: firstly, several people that I have met (colleagues and friends) enjoy playing Super Monkey Ball (SMB) though they do not normally play computer or videogames. This made me wonder, which features of this console game-or the console gaming situation-causes this unusual engagement in an activity they do not normally engage in? Secondly, being a SMB player myself which very much enjoys to play this game with other people, it appeared to me one day while playing that the cosy social intimacy of the console gaming situation in some respects resembles the experience of the video or TV viewing context and particularly because of this " feature " encourages other forms of social interaction than PC game playing.