Why? Anyone who has spent more than a few hours trying to complete a game knows the feeling: you get to a point where there's a sequence of of tasks you know you have to complete to proceed further into the world, but the tasks themselves are more like chores than entertainment, something you have to do, not something you want to do: building roads and laying power lines, conversing with characters when you've already memorized their lines. And yet a large part of the population performing these tasks every day is composed of precisely the demographic group most averse to doing chores. If you have to lock kids in their room to get them to do their math homework, then why are they willing to spend six months smithing in Ultima? You'll often hear video games included on the list of the debased instant gratifications that abound in our culture, right up there with raunchy music videos and fast food. But compared to most forms of popular entertainment, games turn out to be all about delayed gratifications--sometimes so long delayed that you wonder if the gratification is ever going to show.

On rewards.....
IF you create a system where rewards are both clearly defined and achieved by exploring an environment, you'll find human brains drawn to those systems, even if they're made up of virtual characters and simulated sidewalks. It's not the subject matter of these games that attracts........it's the reward systems that draws those players in, and keeps their famously short attention spans locked n the screen....

Everything Bad is Good for You, Steven Johnson

Labels: everything bad is good for you, popular culture