We all like playing video games, ya?
The challenge, the sense of achievement, the beautiful graphics. We all have our reasons for playing games, but in the end we are really just looking for mental stimulation.
When that stimulation is strong, most of us will dedicate countless hours to a game without so much as a second thought. My Batman: Arkham City “hours played” result is a great example of this, even if it is a tad embarrassing.
What happens through, when a game starts to get boring? What makes a game boring, and what happens to players when they struggle with this?
If you’ll bare with me, I would like to take a few moments to explain my thoughts on the current state of GW2, and what it means for the future.
— What is boring? —
Lets admit right off the bat that boredom is a subjective concept. For some, it can be pure agony to run around killing creatures, yet for others it is a pleasant task to pass the time. Despite this, I think we can all agree to some degree that in general, boredom is doing a task repeatedly beyond a point where most of us would consider it mentally stimulating.
When applied to video games, and specifically MMOs, the number of times a task is done, must directly compare to the reward, or sense of achievement a player feels. For example, I spent countless hours working on certain jumping puzzles, but despite the repetitive nature, not often felt bored. In contrast, I’ve found myself struggling to do simple tasks such as killing 150 periscopes for the monthly achievement.
So, if we can agree that players are more likely to become bored, the longer they must weigh the task being done, with the reward being offered, we can move on.
— What happens to a bored player? —
I think it’s pretty common knowledge that when humans get bored, they start looking for things to stimulate them. Anyone who has ever went to school, or worked a job can probably recall numerous times when they’ve found themselves doing anything to avoid the boredom of what they’re tasked with doing.
In the video game world, players who find themselves getting bored, must also find something to keep thief brains from melting into a grey goo. The problem is that when a player finds themselves bored with the game they tend to seek alternative forms of stimulation.
For a game company, this can be dangerous. The last thing they want is their player base bored silly. They know that bored players are much more likely to find reasons to complain. They know that bored players will start looking for shortcuts and exploits. They know that these players are likely to spend less time playing the game, and ultimately they know these players are much more likely to move on to other games.
Boredom can be hard to avoid, and because the potential consequences are so high for a game company, its obvious they’re going to do everything possible to keep player happy right?
— All aboard the boring train to Boredtown —
If game companies know that happy players will spend more time, and money in the game, why do companies insist on making them bored?
As we’ve hopefully agreed upon above, repetitive tasks are one of the biggest contributing factors to boredom. Yet MMOs such as this one, continuously add tasks that demand repetition. This repetition is often called grind.
Of course, I don’t have to tell all of you what grind is, but perhaps ANet hasn’t quite figured out that grind, basically means vast amounts of repetition. Now, I’m not so stupid to think that MMOs aren’t about repeating the same task again and again. This is basically what MMOs are.
The problem is that it seems game companies seem to feel the easiest way to create something for player to do, is to give them a task, then ask them to repeat it a ridiculous amount of times. The trick, as you can guess is to find that fine line between doing something just enough times that the player feels they’ve done something, and finding themselves bored.
MMOs unfortunately seem to fail at finding this sweet spot for most players. These companies tend to over estimate the patience level, and time availability of the average player. This is unfortunate, because when companies default to grind like tasks for content, it brings their players just that much closer to boredom.
