Why we play difficult games

What makes people want to play difficult games? When are they likely to feel like a waste of time?

First of all, Kirk and I talk about GDQ and hot dog contests before we get into all kinds of video games like the audio leak of the Cyberpunk E3 demo Google & # 39 ; s. plans for a video game platform, and how the wonderful Hollow Knight made us think of the call of the difficult games.

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Kirk: … If I do not beat [ Hollow Knight this is true final leader] it will give me the impression of such a defeat, and I hate this feeling, even if I think: "I could be playing the guitar right now … I could do something other than try this boss 30th time. And I do not know, it has made me think in general of why we are taking up challenges in games that are already difficult, and to psychology I feel that I need to do it. Do you have that feeling when you play really hard games?

Jason: Yes and no, because at some point I have to reconcile feeling, "I really want to overcome this challenge" and also "How many hours of my life what will it take, and how much of those hours could I spend playing something that will be more rewarding emotionally or narratively satisfying, "or something like that. Because you get some things to beat really hard games that you can not get else, but you do not get any other things … You do not feel like you're enriching your life in an intellectual way. You look back and you say, "Oh my god, I just spent 20 hours trying to beat that boss and all I had was, that's this burst of satisfaction and that's it." is all."

Kirk: -scene I could have watched on YouTube.

Jason: It almost feels like eating fast food – it does not feed sometimes. Sometimes it feels good,

Kirk: I almost feel like I was a hamster who learned a very complicated light pattern. OK, here are the side swords, go right, jump, around, finished. I have the sound turned down, and as I take a cooler and cooler approach to combat, I'm doing better … I'm really good at Hollow Knight now. When I play against regular bosses, it's just a joke, I feel really comfortable in the game, so there is that. But I agree that there is this issue of diminishing returns – I allow myself to be subjected to this strange scientific experiment where I'm just trying to learn a bunch of models and then run them without problems while my heart rate increases gradually. 19659002] This morning, I arrived at the second phase with all my health, and I thought, "Oh my god, oh my god." And then the adrenaline is spread through your system, and your heart beats, and you If you try to concentrate, you can not keep the distance and delete all the sequences and maintain the constant constant that you have to do, and it's a really weird process compared to what most video games require from

Jason: Do you think one day, 'Oh my god, I'm not sure what's going on. spent all those hours at Hollow Knight I could have done something more rewarding ' [19659002] Kirk: Yes … I think about video games in general.

a lot more, listen to the full episode. As always, you can subscribe to us on Apple and Google Play podcasts to make every episode happen as it should. Leave us a comment if you like what you hear, and join us at [email protected] with any questions, requests and suggestions.