[game_edu] What is the name for this principle?

[Jim Parker]

Also posted to Serious Games

A question that a grad student and I were discussing revolves around the 
observation that there appears to be some kind of compulsion to complete 
certain game tasks that have time constraints. For instance, think of 
Dance Dance Revolution when there is a single step traveling down the 
screen. The player knows what action must be taken, and feels some sort 
of compulsion to not let that note go by.

Furthermore, can this compulsion be described in terms of drawing a 
player into a game as opposed to a player that is already playing a 
game? For example, a DDR game is left running and someone is observing 
the step traveling down the screen. Even though there were not playing 
up to this point, they still feel the compulsion to not let that step go by.

Any papers that discuss this, or even the name of the compulsion would 
be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Jim