The pleasure of the system : cybernetic feedback loops and flow in video games

This paper explores the mobilization of classic cybernetic research and flow theory within video game theory, particularly in relation to their conceptualizations of the mind and the body. Through a consideration of rule structures, meaningful play, and the magic circle in video game play, the systematic and structural considerations of cybernetics are contrasted with the study of pleasure and immersion in flow theory. Through these analyses, this paper considers whether the use of cybernetics and flow serves to epistemologically emphasize or displace the body in a medium that has been argued by Lahti (2003) to induce not simply cognitive but bodily pleasures.