Games Decisions

 "Game Decisions"

The reading for this week was focused on how the design of games can decide if a player will enjoy the game and come back, or get bored quickly and leave the game. It focuses on keeping things basic so people know what to do and they don't fall into either bored, causing them to leave, anxiety because it's to difficult or the flow state, being there given a challenge to complete with instructions and the tools to complete the task. 

The flow state is what every game developer wants to create within their game, getting players into a flow state will give the players an incentive to keep playing because. they won't want to stop when their moving up level by level. The flow state can depend on who the players interacting with, whether it be a new player or a vet in the game. I f the player keeps winning because the other player is new to the game , that player will become bored and leave, if the opposite player is a the same level or better that's when the players will enter the flow state, which will lead them to play the game for hours on end not realizing where all the time went.

From reading the academic study provided in this weeks reading, we have found out that the flow state is good to get things done, but when it comes to spending hours on end, most days of the week there can be very negative impacts on those players lives. The study focuses on Thai children, the studies found that 2.5 million thai children had a game addiction problem. I also states the a high number of children in the U.S also suffer from game addiction along with Australia. It found that in  South Korea a death was caused by acute heart failure due to 80 hours of continues game play.  

Below are links to good articles that help you understand more about the flow state and how it plays part in successful games.

Link 1: https://medium.com/@raydaz/the-applications-relevance-of-flow-state-design-in-video-games-1572dac0d2c

Link 2: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/166972/cognitive_flow_the_psychology_of_.php

Link 3: http://www.strategy.rest/?p=1676