Video Gaming

Filling Bars: How Video Games Make Simple Progress Meaningful

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"It's a great way to fill bars" is a reference around my apartment about games that have a "grind" element.  For those don't immediately get the metaphor, it refers to games that have some kind of progress bar in it (often experience in an RPG) that one fills by various activities, and when it is filled, there is some advancement in a game.  You get the idea.

How many of our games are basically bar-filling?  We gain experience points to level a character, get enough science scores to give our fledgeling virtual civilization a technical advancement, or or just plain earn enouhg money to build that next railroad.  A lot of our games are filling bars, meters, or coffers, often from highly repetitive behavior.

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Go Farther: Procedural Media

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(Last week I suggested spontaneity and surprise were elements that people making media could use to add value and increase interest.  I wanted to explore that more.)

As I've suggested before, spontaneity and unpredictability is an element of a media product (a story, a game, etc.) that can get, maintain, and expand people's interest in the product.  Spontaneity, combined with relatively fast access to the spontaneous content, is a unique way to add value to a media product as its un duplicateable and plays on our love of the unknown and novel.  Getting that spontaneity is thus important – but varies from media to media.

Every kind of media has its different advantages and disadvantages in adding spontaneity to it.  Changing technology has also altered how this can be done, and changing expectations have altered what people expect.  I'm going to take a look at the different kinds of media and how spontaneity can be added to them.

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