How long were you compelled to continue “breathing” despite there being no real consequences? I’d like to talk about the addicting nature of clicker games and the feeling of compulsion that the player is given, despite the incredibly low stakes surrounding what happens if you don’t click. Even with knowing that you could stop at any time, that you should go back to your work, do whatever you need to do– you keep clicking more.
So this is where I was thinking about the real purpose of clicker games. We were talking about in class if they are a waste of time, a waste of energy, a waste of internet, etc. because of the very nature of them–all you do is click repeatedly for very minimal reward, in the form of progressing through a game. However, this makes me wonder how this is any different from any other game–what makes a game a waste of time or not? Most video games or games in general do not give the player a physical token of having completed it, just the feeling associated with accomplishment that one gets from completing or getting better with practice?
So why say that someone spending hours on Cookie Clicker is any more wasting time than someone spending hours playing World of Warcraft?
Of course, I think this also lends itself to the idea of slow games we have talked about when it comes to the lack of objective. I think the addictive nature of clicker games does come from the idea of being able to quickly reach an objective, but at the same time clicker games almost have the ultra-casual feel of the low-stress low-practice-needed feeling of what we defined as playing a ”slow game”.
So is my “Breathing Simulator” a waste of time? It has no clear objective other than to survive, of course, and I’m thinking of starting an e-sport out of it to see how long people can last playing it (jk LMAO). But for real, I think that a game like this, even simple in nature, gives me the feeling of addiction when it comes to “just one more click before the timer runs out”, and I’m wondering how you all will interpret my own take on a ”fast game” and a clicker.
I enjoy the concept of a “Breathing Simulator” as a way to comment on the nature of clicker games. When I think about breathing, it oftentimes becomes harder to breathe normally. Breathing is an unconscious action after all. Thus, a hyper-focus on breathing in and out disrupts this normal flow and warrants a high level of focus to maintain.
Applied to clicker games like Cookie Clicker, I see their addictive nature as having a common origin: the conscious effort to focus on that which normally requires little thought. Ordering another cookie, or making a paperclip are both repetitive tasks that can be done on autopilot, for example. Continuing to click and while simultaneously weighing all of the other options for asset management flexes both these unconscious and conscious forms of play.
This is such an interesting idea! This sim gamified breathing–an everyday necessary action. And I think it does a perfect job in highlighting the procedure of breathing, like, you are never more aware that you actually need to breathe in, and then breathe out within a given amount of time, in order to keep yourself alive. In this sense, clicker games do a good job of letting us reevaluate and rethink our daily routines and realize their unusualness. This is when you realize “oh actually everyday basic life functions are something unusual and it actually takes effort.” And the waste of time argument is precisely correct: we do waste a lot of time breathing in and out every day, or sleeping, or eating, etc. So this simulation does fit our reality.
This also lets me think about one possibility of making good use of clicker games, which is that this might (?) be a good way to counter ableism and raise people’s awareness of the difficulty of finishing simple routines for people with disabilities, because such games are about highlighting a simple daily action with lots of physical effort (e.g., incessant clicking in clicker games), which although is literally nothing compared to the effort people with disabilities need to spend in order to maintain their life, can call people’s attention on the fact that even the most seemingly simple action requires effort, and not everyone can do it easily.
This breathing simulator is cooooool. Also the discussion you brought up about what games count as wastes of time and what games are considered more meaningful is really interesting. In China, there is a phenomenon called “fast-food-style gaming culture,” which is the recent phenomenon that people spend hours and hours playing games that don’t have any utility, but people are really addicted to these games because you get instant gratification from them. This also links to the popularity of Tik Tok nowadays and how people’s attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, and people prefer instant gratification instead of long-term ones. In response to this, China recently held a gaming restriction for children under 18 limiting their gaming hours. Also, data show that the majority of the people getting addicted to “fast food video games” are mostly in the working class. Since they don’t learn or grow much when playing these games, this could be a way for people in power to try to keep the working class more ignorant and easy to manipulate…