3.7 not fun

Video games seem much like Dionysus’s wolves.¹ They seduce us away from civilized society with the promise of unlimited pleasure. And they prey on the vulnerable members of the herd–the young, the lonely, and the bored.

–&–

The game begins with the jarring and unpleasantly loud roar of jet engines. The volume is not a design flaw, but a feature. The noise makes a sharp break with the rest of reality. It immediately immerses you in the world of the game.

You are in the belly of a cargo plane flying over Verdansk, the massive semi-devastated post-Soviet landscape of the game. You are joined by 150 enemies and 0 to 3 teammates. The first of many fraught decisions is already upon you: When will you jump?

Hopefully, you find somewhere quiet to land. But do not dawdle. Your team is alone for now, but it is a frantic aloneness as you search for guns and money to prepare for the fights to come.

You might spend several minutes running around, gathering loot, seeing no one. Then, suddenly, the game explodes in sound and light. You’re being shot. In less than a second you’re down. You moved too slowly and a more aggressive team found you unprepared. Or you moved too recklessly and a more aware team caught you in the open.

You get one more life, but this second chance probably goes much like the first. The only difference is that the other teams will be even more prepared. When they find and inevitably kill you again, you groan or whine or maybe say “gg.” And you queue for another round.

This is how almost every game will go, no matter how skilled you get. For reference: at my peak, I won 4% of my games. The average player wins less than 1% of their games. The long-time winningest player won 50% of his games–a coin flip. And many players never ever win a game. Nearly every player spends almost all of their time losing.

This constant losing makes the game stressful and dispiriting. But it’s also what makes the game so consuming. If you want any chance of success, if you don’t want to let your friends down, if you want to avoid dying, you must pay close attention.

Subtle clues reveal much in the game. Amidst all the noise of getting shot, a red line indicates what direction they’re shooting from. On a distant hill, a slight movement is the only difference between the brown blob of an bush and a sniper. And small sounds are even more important: hearing footsteps often distinguishes the surpriser from the surprised.

The game’s violence gives these details existential importance. Dying in the game feels awful in real life. Dying is sudden, bright, loud, painful. It doesn’t feel like dying; it feels worse, it feels like losing.

And, actually, you don’t die right away. First, you get downed. While down, you can only crawl, vainly hoping the other team doesn’t finish you. Hypothetically, you could share information about the other team. Probably you’ll just whine. Being downed is a state of enforced frustration.

Why tolerate these violent frustrations? Because downing someone else is deeply satisfying. If you downed them, you were, in that moment, better. You were more skilled, or in a stronger position, or they made a mistake. The violence, the “kill or be killed” mechanic, creates a competitive clarity that is, for me at least, deeply psychologically compelling.

–&–

Although Warzone seems to reward attention and skill and experience, it also punishes growth.

Warzone secretly employs something called “Skill-Based Matchmaking.” This means that the game uses an algorithm to group players according to ability. The secrecy is unusual because Skill-Based Matchmaking is standard for video games as it is for sports. Competitive games should set up fair fights.

These rankings mean, however, that the better you get the harder the competition. And the secrecy means this all happens without any tangible signs of progression.

And actually, there’s some evidence that Warzone isn’t merely using Skill-Based Matchmaking, but also Engagement-Based Matchmaking. That is, the algorithm seems to adjust difficulty in order to keep you playing.

For instance, they might start you off easy to give you a taste of killing. In the next few matches, they amp up the difficulty, perhaps even making you the easy kills for better squads. If the system is working properly, when you’re just about ready to give up, they throw you a softball to remind you of the satisfaction of crushing weaker players.

The game-makers deny using Engagement-Based Matchmaking. But we shouldn’t take them at their word. They also deny using Skill-Based Matchmaking, and that’s clearly a lie.

The secrecy is, itself, evidence. If they were using Engagement-Based Matchmaking, then it would have to be secret. If the game revealed each game’s skill level, it would be clear when you were being dropped into easier games. And this would ruin the effect. Players would quit hard games until they got an easy one. Moreover, if Engagement-Based Matchmaking works, then the algorithm would be a terribly valuable trade secret.

–&–

Video games, dog trainers, social media companies, and casinos share a common method: intermittent rewarding.

It turns out, mammals’ brains quickly become habituated to pleasure. A reliable pleasure can be ignored. In contrast, we seem almost unable to turn away from infrequent, randomized bursts of satisfaction.

For example, dogs learn best when they only get treats sometimes. And Facebook is alluring because most of it is awful. If it was always (or even just reliably) good, you’d get on, get your fix, and get off. But when the nuggets of joy are hidden in shit, you’ll spend all day digging. Similarly, while the gambler might think they’re playing to win, the casino knows that losing money is what keeps them coming back.

Frustration doesn’t inhibit the addict, frustration fuels the addiction. This cognitive bias is what makes gambling, social media, and video games dangerously profitable.

I must admit: I re-interpreted the play. They aren’t wolves in the Euripides original. They’re women. The Maenads are the sometimes voluntary, sometimes involuntary female followers of Dionysus. But I feel justified in my change for two reasons: First, the fact that they’re only women is, at best, weird. Second, they behave much like wolves: joined in pack, wild and predatory. ↩