I find the notion of the interval interesting with open-world games. As the article states "Having a period of time where there is little incentive to play the game can lead to the player walking away." I tend to find that with open-world games, I almost always walk away. I don't know if it's the idea of having SO MUCH I can do that I'm overwhelmed, or feeling that BECAUSE of such a random and broad interval (rather, so many options) I feel that there's a lack of direction, or that I'm not exactly sure where I should be going or what I should be doing to get the reinforcer. Sure I totally understand the concept of A) Accept Quest B) Fulfill requirements of said quest C) accept reward, but when there are SO many quests to do, I always end up accepting every quest in the area and then getting confused about which one I should do first because there's little main direction. As an aside, the other thing I dislike about open world games is that sometimes if you reach a certain point on the main story line, you're no longer able to go back and play some side-quests. I hate that. How am I supposed to know I can no longer access a side-quest at a certain point? In my experience I'm not sure that I've ever encountered a game that has flat out said "Are you sure you want to continue? You may not be able to access content prior to this if you proceed." I prefer to explore every aspect of a game when possible, and I feel that because of the overwhelming supply of quests and random loss of content at various points, I tend to play these games less. I bought Skyrim a year ago, and have only managed to get through the beginning where you escape (I've done this 3 times, thinking "Oh, I'll finally play this, so let's start over"). The moment I get to the town I get overwhelmed with the options and quit.

On the other side of the coin, you could argue that open world games provide endless entertainment, giving players the reason to play forever, hence the endless quests "make sure that there is always, always a reason for the player to be playing." This is probably true for people who aren't bothered by not having a defined goal at all times.

I wonder what the author of the article would write in regards to open-world games specifically. I'd like to hear what other people have to say about attention span and open-world games. How many of you experience the overwhelmed feeling, and how many of you find the endless array of options exhilarating?

I feel like this can either go well for Zynga... or end in tears. I HOPE it's good for them. They really need some serious help... but I suppose only time will tell.

Oh gosh, I don't think I had thought about how we've grown 'trained' to desire achievements and badges. I don't know if trained is the right word.... I guess it's just surprising how similar this desire is to the rat in the box hitting the switch for random rewards. But it's exactly like that- randomly generated stats on item drops, steam achievements, the summer sale trading card collection for badges. I'm totally guilty of descending on those summer getaway trading cards to make badges....

http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2013/07/the-psychology-behind-steams-summer-sale/ this totally sums up the summer sale mentality. I'm guilty of purchasing a couple extra games as gifts for my boyfriend simply because I wanted to reach that next $10 mark and get another trading card...

So disappointing! :(

I'm not familiar with this site at all. Can you give us a quick rundown of what features we can use here?

This is cool. It reminded me of this other TED talk I saw about a woman who taught her daughter about the historical event of the middle passage. Brilliant game that helped her understand what happened.