[Retric]

I don’t think you can say fun = dopamine rush. A dopamine rush works when the periods between them aren’t fun. However, when drunkenly singing drinking songs with your friends it’s overall a pleasant experience rather than having moments of happiness and long segments of boredom.

So what I am saying is gamers have mostly forgotten what it is to have fun in games. Playing around with cheese wheels in Skyrim is different from grinding a character to game breaking power and killing everything in one hit. Challenges based in getting better at the mechanics are different than challenges based on pure time investment.

IMO the three pillars of a great game are entertainment, fun/joy aka playing, and dopamine rushes. Portal 1 was a standout for having all three, but it’s hard to pull off.