Flow

In my last review, I talked about the concept of flow. I'll just ruminate on this concept for a minute or two and explain why I think it is the most integral component of a video game.

Flow is actually a term from psychology in which the person undergoing flow experiences “is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity”

It’s what writers, musicians, and other artists experience during the process of creation. It’s what athletes describe as “being in the zone”. And it’s what a every gamer hopes to find underneath a $50 dollar shrink wrapped plastic disc. It’s in short, “fun”. Yet, only a handful of games every year produce flow within the gamer. Instead, developers and publishers choose to focus on graphics (sucks to be you ps3/why EA sucks) or SFX or MORE levels, or BIGGER GUNS!!!!

According to the psychologist Csikszentmihalyi, a person experiences flow when some of the following conditions are met.

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities).
2. Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
4. Distorted sense of time - one's subjective experience of time is altered.
5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
6. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
7. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
8. When in the flow state, people become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975. p.72).

Recent games that come to mind that achieve this for me include: Civilization, Comapany of Heroes, the new C&C Game, Half Life 2, Guitar Hero, Starcraft, World of Warcraft, (basically any MMORPG or any game from Blizzard). Look at Diablo 2, atrocious graphics for the time, and yet addictive and fun.

Game developers, please start concentrating on creating flow. Then we’ll buy your games. This is why crap games companies go out of business, nobody wants to buy their games if its not fun. Stop with the graphics evolution already.

Here’s an example of a free game with a lot of FlOw