“You can’t help shouting and yelling”: fun and social interaction in Super Monkey Ball

Abstract

This paper examines the relation between social inter- action 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 rela- tion between gaming skills, the gaming situation as a pleasurable and relieving social activity and the expe- rience of fun.