Finding #6: Happiness is a perspective.

Reason: A recent study explained that the mid-life crisis happens when it does because at that point in life, people have to face giving up their dreams. After and before that happens, people are happiest in life. Before mid-life crisis, people have hope. Why are they happy after giving that up? Because they reach acceptance and appreciation of what they do have.

Application: How can hardcore players pore countless hours into the same game? Could it be that they have come to appreciate the nuances of a game down to the finest details? Watching tournament gamers and competitive athletes, I see similarities in their fervor. Both feel that outside from their in-game triumphs, they have made mostly unique accomplishments that garner admiration and reflect dedication.

And what about casual gamers? Could it be that they enjoy their guild or bridge club as much as the game itself? Don't they love the esteemed history of the New York Times crosswords, or being part of the in-crowd with Simpsons Trivia? Of course, and there are also players that take from both factors as well.

Designers who want happy gamers should see if their work is conducive to appreciation. Super Smash Bros. and the oldie-but-goodie LucasArts adventure games do wonderful jobs of appreciating themselves first, and drawing players in with that enthusiasm. It's great to play something that effuses self-celebration.

In Monkey Island, I remember walking my character off a cliff in a game where you weren't supposed to be able to die. I sat shocked at the Restart-Or-Quit dialog box that popped up, when all of a sudden my character bounced back from below the screen, landed on solid ground, and said "Rubber tree." I laughed so hard at that smirk through the fourth wall, which not only turned punishment into a gain, but also pulled me into a secret humor only gamers would get.

Be it the attention to realism in Call of Duty 4, or the genre tongue-in-cheek of Puzzle Quest, we love to see games reciprocate with the audience. Taste is less important than confirmation when it comes to enjoyment. How else can I account for an embarrassing love of the pompous, devil-may-care, adolescent style of the Unreal Tournament series, whose learning CDs and free editing tools trains a proper fanboy out of me?