Games engage us with challenges. They are designed to create what researcher Mihály Csikszentmihályi calls “flow,” which is when we’re immersed in something enough to forget the passage of time. We’re never bored or overwhelmed because good games keep a perfect balance of hard but not too hard, easy but never too easy. And as we improve, games up the difficulty. We’re always stretching our abilities just enough to keep us hooked.
