Why We Play Games - Nicole Lazzaro

Annotated Bibilography
In the article, Why We Play Games, the author points out four areas that they believe are important to emotion in game play. These are Hard Fun,  the opportunity to overcome a challenge. Easy Fun, an adventure or something that can hold attention in an enjoyable way. Altered States, the feeling that people get from playing games including distraction from other thoughts and positive sensations. Also The People Factor, is an element that allows for interaction and camaraderie or shared experiences in game play.

My Thoughts
In games, people aren't afraid to fail, in fact they welcome some amount of failure.  In learning it seems that failure can quickly turn people away from the activity.  I wonder if it has something to do with the set up of expectations.  Perhaps in learning failure should be set up as part of the process as opposed to a negative thing.  I have had teachers who encourage failure because it means that a student is trying new things and on the path to finding the right answer.  It seemed much more productive than punishing a failure.  I wonder if there are any studies on encouraged mistakes or positive association with failure in learning.
With games, I've encountered many kids and the study mentions it as well.  There are people who like to just watch other people playing games.  I wonder what is behind that and whether we could take advantage of this for education.  One study showed that out of two people completing an educational language software the one watching learned more than the one playing the game.