First post!

Hey, folks. Richard Goodness here with my new blog, Jeuissance. This is going to be a basic depository for my thoughts on gaming--either basic analysis, impressions/reviews, commentary on events, or whatever I feel like writing about. Don't expect anything like regular updates or a posting schedule--I'll post when I have something to say.

So what, exactly, does "jeuissance" mean? The term "jouissance" ("jou"=joy) is used in psychoanalytic and other literary theory to mean a release of joy akin to orgasm; it's often used to describe the pleasure one gets from the act of reading. "Jeu" is the French word for game and it's
pronounced very similarly to "jou," so in a lot of ways "Jeuissance" is a kind of pun. I use it to mean "the joy of play"--a feeling of joy you get from the act of holding a controller, pushing buttons, and interacting with a world in a way that only a videogame allows you to. It's that feeling that makes you say, just one more level, even though you've got to be up for work in four hours. That feeling which, even though you're faced with a boss you just can't beat, makes you need to keep going. It's the reason I kept that controller in my hand after my first, disastrous game of Dig Dug when I was three, and the reason I still play to this day.