The Streaming Chronicles II - The Flow of Gaming

Earlier in the blog, I had talked about how we as a viewing audience were leaving behind that traditional story structure in favor of a more extended middle. This theory is based on a phenomenon called "flow." Jay David Bolter, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology wrote an article for Wired Magazine exploring the phenomenon of flow and the biggest culprit pushing us towards it, video games.

What is Flow?

Bolter described flow by quoting early 1970s psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He said that flow is "a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it."

When Csikszentmihalyi wrote about flow, he was referring to what could be felt when fully focused on a sport. If you've ever seen finals LeBron play, that is the definition of flow. But in today's entertainment industry, flow can be applied to various activities: social media, binge watching, what is commonly referred to as the YouTube hole, and finally video games.

The Gaming Flow

Games can generally be categorized in one of three categories: mobile, PC, and console.

Mobile games are heavily-built on the concept of flow, people spend hours upon hours playing games like Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, and The Sims. They don't do this for the sake of an accomplishment or finality in finishing the game, at no point does your village in clash of clans become complete or your Sim grows old and dies, they do it because it's so enjoyable and because they can keep doing it.

PC and console games on the other come in different genres. The most recent of which being the Battle Royale. Battle Royale games, and first person shooters in general, rely on flow because there is no plot. The game is not meant to tell a story or have the player develop care for the character. These games are built based upon the rush a player gets when they defeat another player and improving your character as much as possible to achieve that rush again.

Some of the most popular games on consoles and PC aren't built on flow but rather deliver a strong story with an ending, games like: The Witcher 3 - Wild Hunt, Skyrim, and, Grand Theft Auto. But even when the games have compelling stories and characters, players get lost in the vast worlds and numerous side quests offered throughout it.

As a big fan of gaming, flow is the only explanation to why I logged 500 hours playing The Witcher 3 even though the campaign is about 100 hours long. I played the game more than once, and every time I played, I spent hours disregarding the main plot while finding random villages and doing quests for strangers.

Whether an active flow like sports or first-person shooters or a passive flow like binge watching all of Community, flow "offers the viewer, player, or participant not only pleasure in the moment, but also the seductive possibility that the moment might go on indefinitely."

Until next time...