Wasting Time
Games Without Players
1. A… What game?
I’m clicking a cow.
I’m clicking a cow.
I’m clicking a cow.
I’m clicking a cow.
I’m clicking a cow.
I’m clicking a cow.
I’m clicking a cow.
I’m clicking a cow.
You have just witnessed the result of two full days playing 2011’s strangest hit game, Cow Clicker. In this riveting title, players can click a cow once every six hours. That’s about it. Players can spend real-world money on in-game Mooney, which can be used to skip the six-hour wait or to buy new cows (Cow Clicker). Do you think this game sounds fun? Neither does Cow Clicker’s developer, Ian Bogost. In fact, he designed it specifically to be irritating.
Cow Clicker is one of the earliest examples of a genre known as idle games. Idle games, sometimes referred to as incremental or unfolding games, are unique in that they more or less play themselves with little input from the player. While I am hesitant to give a concrete definition, idle games are characterized by the unique core mechanic[1] of waiting, hence the name idle games. Unlike Mario, for example, the player’s primary interaction with the game is not running or jumping, it’s waiting.
There are a few reasons that these idle games are worth talking about. It’s the birth of a new genre, which is a rare occurrence. This black sheep of a game is actually surprisingly popular and is played both ironically and unironically by thousands. They dominate the online browser game charts on sites like Kongregate, where half of the top 10 most played games today are idle games ("Browse Recently Popular Games," Kongregate). Kongregate also reports that idle games offer the best retention rates and generate more revenue than most of their other single-player browser games (Pecorella). This odd surge in both popularity and profitability is reason that these strange games about doing nothing are being investigated by confused game designers.
When first hearing about games whose core mechanic is waiting, one would reasonably ask themself, “Why would I ever want to play these? I mean, it hardly even sounds like a game!” Unsurprisingly, game designers want to know the answer to that very question. The first and most obvious reason is that people like to watch numbers go up. It seems odd, but it is based off the same principle as a Skinner Box[2]. Couple that with the sunk cost fallacy[3], and – voilà – you have a masterpiece of psychological manipulation.
Industry veteran James Portnow suggests that idle games are not popular because they are inherently fun, but because they are the games people play when they cannot be playing other games. Because idle games provide the player with something that progresses without player input, they can be left open in a tab while the you do something else that is actively productive. For example, I am playing the idle game Cookie Clicker as I write this very sentence. Idle games play on our desire to multi-task. “We are always never not doing something,” says Portnow, “like we’re always making progress.” After surveying idle game players at a high school, James discovered that many students play idle games because “it was actually hard for them to sit through a lecture without doing anything else. It made them feel… weird, and nervous. And idle games were a good answer to that” (Extra Credits - Idle Games - How Games Scratch Your Multitasking Itch).
I’m clicking a cow.
I’m clicking a cow.
I’m clicking a cow.
I’m clicking a cow.
I’m clicking a cow.
I’m clicking a cow.
I’m clicking a cow.
You have just witnessed the result of two full days playing 2011’s strangest hit game, Cow Clicker. In this riveting title, players can click a cow once every six hours. That’s about it. Players can spend real-world money on in-game Mooney, which can be used to skip the six-hour wait or to buy new cows (Cow Clicker). Do you think this game sounds fun? Neither does Cow Clicker’s developer, Ian Bogost. In fact, he designed it specifically to be irritating.
Cow Clicker is one of the earliest examples of a genre known as idle games. Idle games, sometimes referred to as incremental or unfolding games, are unique in that they more or less play themselves with little input from the player. While I am hesitant to give a concrete definition, idle games are characterized by the unique core mechanic[1] of waiting, hence the name idle games. Unlike Mario, for example, the player’s primary interaction with the game is not running or jumping, it’s waiting.
There are a few reasons that these idle games are worth talking about. It’s the birth of a new genre, which is a rare occurrence. This black sheep of a game is actually surprisingly popular and is played both ironically and unironically by thousands. They dominate the online browser game charts on sites like Kongregate, where half of the top 10 most played games today are idle games ("Browse Recently Popular Games," Kongregate). Kongregate also reports that idle games offer the best retention rates and generate more revenue than most of their other single-player browser games (Pecorella). This odd surge in both popularity and profitability is reason that these strange games about doing nothing are being investigated by confused game designers.
When first hearing about games whose core mechanic is waiting, one would reasonably ask themself, “Why would I ever want to play these? I mean, it hardly even sounds like a game!” Unsurprisingly, game designers want to know the answer to that very question. The first and most obvious reason is that people like to watch numbers go up. It seems odd, but it is based off the same principle as a Skinner Box[2]. Couple that with the sunk cost fallacy[3], and – voilà – you have a masterpiece of psychological manipulation.
Industry veteran James Portnow suggests that idle games are not popular because they are inherently fun, but because they are the games people play when they cannot be playing other games. Because idle games provide the player with something that progresses without player input, they can be left open in a tab while the you do something else that is actively productive. For example, I am playing the idle game Cookie Clicker as I write this very sentence. Idle games play on our desire to multi-task. “We are always never not doing something,” says Portnow, “like we’re always making progress.” After surveying idle game players at a high school, James discovered that many students play idle games because “it was actually hard for them to sit through a lecture without doing anything else. It made them feel… weird, and nervous. And idle games were a good answer to that” (Extra Credits - Idle Games - How Games Scratch Your Multitasking Itch).
2. Counter-Games
Video games are both an expressive and a persuasive new medium. They allow their players to explore the systems and processes created by the designer. Games are unique in that their persuasiveness comes not from the story being told, but from the systems themselves. This suggests that games have created a new form of rhetorical devices. Ian Bogost (yes, the same Ian Bogost that made Cow Clicker) calls this procedural rhetoric, the practice of using processes persuasively. The expressions and arguments made by procedural rhetoric are not made from words or images, but from their constructed rules and dynamics (Bogost, Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames).
Any game that uses this procedural rhetoric effectively is a persuasive game. Persuasive games use their rules and dynamics to make a point, express a view, etcetera. Purposefully vague, the only criteria to be a persuasive game is that the mechanics convey an intended message. This vagueness differentiates persuasive games from the widely-used term “serious games.” A persuasive game is not bound by the “seriousness” of a topic, making serious games a subcategory of persuasive games. A persuasive game can be as much about relaxation[4] as it can be about deforestation (Bogost, Persuasive Games : The Expressive Power of Videogames).
Counter-games are arguably the most important type of serious and persuasive games because they talk about what nobody else wants to. Inspired by counter-culture, counter-games consider themselves apart from the commercial video game industry. Counter-games are often about real-world topics that the mainstream industry shies away from. Just like other counter-culture media, counter-games may or may not be explicitly political, although that is subject that they are most associated with. They criticize, parody, and otherwise reject or bring to light aspects of our world that society ignores.
A prime example of a counter-game is Vagamundo: A Migrant’s Tale. Created by Ricardo Miranda Zuñiga in 2003, Vagamundo reflects the hardships undergone by Latin-American immigrants after arriving in urban United States. In the first level, the player must doge flying liquor bottles in order to sober up and get a job. The second level has the player fighting the stereotype monster, represented by a giant cockroach that shouts “English Only!” when it lands a punch. Each challenge is nearly impossible to complete on the first attempt. It’s about empathy, and as a byproduct it reveals the underlying racism prevalent in American culture (Vagamundo).
Vagamundo’s politically charged commentary makes it a textbook definition of a counter-game, but there is a vast difference between Vagamundo and Cow Clicker. Vagamundo is oppressively serious and tackles deep-seeded issues in our society, while Cow Clicker can’t go two minutes without telling a bad pun[5]. Can we still call Cow Clicker a counter-game? Yes, we can. I propose that Cow Clicker is a different type of counter-game, a counter-game that criticizes game design instead of culture.
Cow Clicker isn’t unique in this, either. A surprising amount of games have found themselves looking at video games with a critical eye. The Stanley Parable deconstructs how game narratives interact with their mechanics. DLC Quest protests the industry’s excessive amounts of downloadable content by requiring players to buy (in-game) DLC to enable everything from animations, to sound, and even the ability to jump. Cow Clicker wasn’t even the first idle game to criticize game design. Progress Quest is a parody of EverQuest and other MMORPGs, especially those with an “auto-attack” feature. Progress Quest was a character sheet that automatically upgraded itself over time, no player input needed. It was a zero-player game, so much so that the Wikipedia page for Progress Quest cheekily puts quotes around the word “game” throughout its article ("Progress Quest," Wikipedia).
What is unique about Cow Clicker is its long-term influence. Following in Cow Clicker’s wake[6] came a wave of countless idle games that were devoid of criticism. Modern idle games aren’t in on the joke; they are a genre of imitators. What does it mean when people enjoy the parody more than the original, or worse, forget that there ever was an original? How does the transformation of idle games from critical play to unironic enjoyment disrupt our current understanding of counter-games?
Any game that uses this procedural rhetoric effectively is a persuasive game. Persuasive games use their rules and dynamics to make a point, express a view, etcetera. Purposefully vague, the only criteria to be a persuasive game is that the mechanics convey an intended message. This vagueness differentiates persuasive games from the widely-used term “serious games.” A persuasive game is not bound by the “seriousness” of a topic, making serious games a subcategory of persuasive games. A persuasive game can be as much about relaxation[4] as it can be about deforestation (Bogost, Persuasive Games : The Expressive Power of Videogames).
Counter-games are arguably the most important type of serious and persuasive games because they talk about what nobody else wants to. Inspired by counter-culture, counter-games consider themselves apart from the commercial video game industry. Counter-games are often about real-world topics that the mainstream industry shies away from. Just like other counter-culture media, counter-games may or may not be explicitly political, although that is subject that they are most associated with. They criticize, parody, and otherwise reject or bring to light aspects of our world that society ignores.
A prime example of a counter-game is Vagamundo: A Migrant’s Tale. Created by Ricardo Miranda Zuñiga in 2003, Vagamundo reflects the hardships undergone by Latin-American immigrants after arriving in urban United States. In the first level, the player must doge flying liquor bottles in order to sober up and get a job. The second level has the player fighting the stereotype monster, represented by a giant cockroach that shouts “English Only!” when it lands a punch. Each challenge is nearly impossible to complete on the first attempt. It’s about empathy, and as a byproduct it reveals the underlying racism prevalent in American culture (Vagamundo).
Vagamundo’s politically charged commentary makes it a textbook definition of a counter-game, but there is a vast difference between Vagamundo and Cow Clicker. Vagamundo is oppressively serious and tackles deep-seeded issues in our society, while Cow Clicker can’t go two minutes without telling a bad pun[5]. Can we still call Cow Clicker a counter-game? Yes, we can. I propose that Cow Clicker is a different type of counter-game, a counter-game that criticizes game design instead of culture.
Cow Clicker isn’t unique in this, either. A surprising amount of games have found themselves looking at video games with a critical eye. The Stanley Parable deconstructs how game narratives interact with their mechanics. DLC Quest protests the industry’s excessive amounts of downloadable content by requiring players to buy (in-game) DLC to enable everything from animations, to sound, and even the ability to jump. Cow Clicker wasn’t even the first idle game to criticize game design. Progress Quest is a parody of EverQuest and other MMORPGs, especially those with an “auto-attack” feature. Progress Quest was a character sheet that automatically upgraded itself over time, no player input needed. It was a zero-player game, so much so that the Wikipedia page for Progress Quest cheekily puts quotes around the word “game” throughout its article ("Progress Quest," Wikipedia).
What is unique about Cow Clicker is its long-term influence. Following in Cow Clicker’s wake[6] came a wave of countless idle games that were devoid of criticism. Modern idle games aren’t in on the joke; they are a genre of imitators. What does it mean when people enjoy the parody more than the original, or worse, forget that there ever was an original? How does the transformation of idle games from critical play to unironic enjoyment disrupt our current understanding of counter-games?
3. Clicking Cows
The world’s worst game, otherwise known as Cow Clicker, is a scathing criticism of the abusive game design practices employed by social games. Cow Clicker seemed to have a vendetta against Zynga and their massively successful game FarmVille. It mocked the skinner box in FarmVille. It mocked the energy systems in FarmVille. It even mocked the vice president of FarmVille’s developer. Ian Bogost pulled no punches.
Designed for minute-long play sessions, FarmVille wanted players log on, collect a few rewards, and leave again. “You click on a cow, and that’s all you do" (qtd. in Tanz). FarmVille utilizes a skinner box and timing systems to enforced strict reward schedules on its players[7]. It conditions players to return throughout the day, then attempts to monetize this compulsion through microtransactions. This method of design and monetization is inhumane, not to mention morally questionable, and has caused many people in the community to call Zynga out in protest (Tanz).
The straw that broke the camel’s back, however, was at the March GDC 2010 Game Developer’s Choice Award ceremony. Tensions between the traditional and casual game development worlds were already high. With FarmVille boasting 110 million players, it was no surprise that Zynga’s farm-themed Skinner box won the award for “Best Social/Online Game.” Bill Mooney, the vice president of Zynga, did nothing to alleviate these tensions when he came onstage to accept the award. Mooney ticked off quite a few independent game developers when he urged “you indie folks” to join Zynga because even though “we probably seem like a pretty big company, … two years ago, we were 20 people sitting in a crappy little room” (Mooney). People really got angry when Mooney discredited their work, telling them to “seriously think of Facebook and the social games space as the last big realm for indies” (Mooney). Mooney’s speech earned him the esteemed title of “That FarmVille Asshole” (Bogost, "Making a Mockery: Ruminations on COW CLICKER."). It seems that most indie developers are happy to work in their crappy little rooms if it meant creative freedom.
One such disgruntled indie developer was an author and professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology named Ian Bogost. Having designed plenty of games purely for their artistic merit[4], Bogost was deeply disturbed by FarmVille’s success.
Designed for minute-long play sessions, FarmVille wanted players log on, collect a few rewards, and leave again. “You click on a cow, and that’s all you do" (qtd. in Tanz). FarmVille utilizes a skinner box and timing systems to enforced strict reward schedules on its players[7]. It conditions players to return throughout the day, then attempts to monetize this compulsion through microtransactions. This method of design and monetization is inhumane, not to mention morally questionable, and has caused many people in the community to call Zynga out in protest (Tanz).
The straw that broke the camel’s back, however, was at the March GDC 2010 Game Developer’s Choice Award ceremony. Tensions between the traditional and casual game development worlds were already high. With FarmVille boasting 110 million players, it was no surprise that Zynga’s farm-themed Skinner box won the award for “Best Social/Online Game.” Bill Mooney, the vice president of Zynga, did nothing to alleviate these tensions when he came onstage to accept the award. Mooney ticked off quite a few independent game developers when he urged “you indie folks” to join Zynga because even though “we probably seem like a pretty big company, … two years ago, we were 20 people sitting in a crappy little room” (Mooney). People really got angry when Mooney discredited their work, telling them to “seriously think of Facebook and the social games space as the last big realm for indies” (Mooney). Mooney’s speech earned him the esteemed title of “That FarmVille Asshole” (Bogost, "Making a Mockery: Ruminations on COW CLICKER."). It seems that most indie developers are happy to work in their crappy little rooms if it meant creative freedom.
One such disgruntled indie developer was an author and professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology named Ian Bogost. Having designed plenty of games purely for their artistic merit[4], Bogost was deeply disturbed by FarmVille’s success.
As I was sitting there in the audience at GDC, this name cow clicker popped into my head as a generic and truly pejorative word for these current trends in Facebook games, the trends to me that seem to be acting like a sort of acid wash across the whole form. I had originally intended it as just a throw-away term, a kind of cute tagline for these challenge-free games that involved clicking on farms and restaurants at regular intervals and implementing one’s friends in these networks of obligation and guilt to keep the infection of the game virulent. It was the sort of thing worth tweeting and then forgetting about (Bogost, "Making a Mockery: Ruminations on COW CLICKER.").
Still angry about Zynga’s “Cow Clickers,” Bogost did what he did best: he made a game. He wanted to design a game that would demonstrate and ridicule the most abusive aspects of social games like FarmVille. It would be a satire of what Bogost considered to be the only point of FarmVille: make the player spend money. The game would just be a timer that you can skip by spending real-world money, which the game refers to as – get this – Mooney[5]. Dubbed Cow Clicker, Ian Bogost successfully designed, developed, and launched the worst game ever conceived (Bogost, "Cow Clicker The Making of Obsession”).
Bogost he had no idea what he had created. In a cruel twist of fate, Cow Clicker became somewhat of a viral phenomenon. Released on July 21, 2010, the parody totaled to over 50,000 Cow Clickers by September, most of whom understood the joke and supported Bogost’s views on humane game design. Although a bit troubled by its success, Bogost went on to make Cow Clicker parody other trends in gaming such as APIs and spin-off products (Tanz). Eventually, however, there were more people that genuinely wanted to play Cow Clicker than those who were in on the joke. Bogost had accidentally committed the very same crimes as FarmVille. “After a while I realized they're doing exactly what concerned me about these games. They're, you know, becoming compulsively attached to it… And also, I began to feel very disturbed by the product” (Bogost, "Cow Clicker Founder: If You Can't Ruin It, Destroy It.").
Bogost knew that he must finish what he started. He knew that he must destroy Cow Clicker. Bogost orchestrated an alternate reality game where the “bovine gods" revealed that the “Cowpocalypse” would occur on July 21, 2011, exactly a year after Cow Clicker’s original release. Each time someone clicked on a cow, the “Cowpocalypse” would creep thirty seconds closer. The countdown could only be extended by paying some real-world money (Bogost, "Cow Clicker Founder: If You Can't Ruin It, Destroy It.").
After $700 worth of sacrifices to the bovine gods, the “Cowpocalypse” finally occurred on September 7, 2011. The game can still be played on Facebook, but all the cows are dead and gone. Despite this, people still click on the empty space where a cow used to be to this day. The fact that people were willing to spend hundreds of dollars to extend Cow Clicker’s lifespan speaks volumes about how much this type of game affects its players.
Bogost he had no idea what he had created. In a cruel twist of fate, Cow Clicker became somewhat of a viral phenomenon. Released on July 21, 2010, the parody totaled to over 50,000 Cow Clickers by September, most of whom understood the joke and supported Bogost’s views on humane game design. Although a bit troubled by its success, Bogost went on to make Cow Clicker parody other trends in gaming such as APIs and spin-off products (Tanz). Eventually, however, there were more people that genuinely wanted to play Cow Clicker than those who were in on the joke. Bogost had accidentally committed the very same crimes as FarmVille. “After a while I realized they're doing exactly what concerned me about these games. They're, you know, becoming compulsively attached to it… And also, I began to feel very disturbed by the product” (Bogost, "Cow Clicker Founder: If You Can't Ruin It, Destroy It.").
Bogost knew that he must finish what he started. He knew that he must destroy Cow Clicker. Bogost orchestrated an alternate reality game where the “bovine gods" revealed that the “Cowpocalypse” would occur on July 21, 2011, exactly a year after Cow Clicker’s original release. Each time someone clicked on a cow, the “Cowpocalypse” would creep thirty seconds closer. The countdown could only be extended by paying some real-world money (Bogost, "Cow Clicker Founder: If You Can't Ruin It, Destroy It.").
After $700 worth of sacrifices to the bovine gods, the “Cowpocalypse” finally occurred on September 7, 2011. The game can still be played on Facebook, but all the cows are dead and gone. Despite this, people still click on the empty space where a cow used to be to this day. The fact that people were willing to spend hundreds of dollars to extend Cow Clicker’s lifespan speaks volumes about how much this type of game affects its players.
4. Becoming Popular
Modern idle games tend to be much faster and more expansive versions of Cow Clicker. Opting out of Bogost’s six-hour timer, modern idle games encourage players to click as fast as possible to earn currency. This mechanic change shifts focus to the tedium of clicking repeatedly. After amassing enough money the player can purchase units that earn money automatically, followed by upgrades that increase their efficiency. Soon the amount of money players earn automatically exceeds the amount they earn by clicking, at which point most players give their clicking finger a rest. Once players have amassed enough wealth, usually an absurdly high number, they can “prestige.” The prestige resets all of the player’s progress, but gives a small bonus that allows the game to be completed slightly faster (Cookie Clicker).
The first idle game to be a mainstream hit was Cookie Clicker. Created by French developer Julien “Orteil” Thiennot in 2013, Cookie Clicker was a parody of a game called Candy Box[8]. Candy Box is a pseudo-RPG idle game with beautiful ASCII “graphics” built around a slowly ticking timer. Every second you get one candy, which can be spent on supplies to fight monsters, plant lollipop trees, and to bribe suspicious witches in the woods[9] (Candy Box!). Thiennot thought that this “very dull (but strangely entertaining) mechanic” could be made even more ridiculous if the player was forced to make the clock tick by hand. Thiennot threw together a prototype in one night and posted his little experiment on the online forum 4chan (Sankin).
To the surprise of everyone who played it, Cookie Clicker was extremely engaging. An anonymous 4chan user had a minor existential crisis, asking, “H-how am I enjoying this…how?” (qtd. in Sankin). In less than a day, the game Thiennot made on a whim registered over 50,000 players. Nobody was more surprised at Cookie Clicker’s success than Thiennot, who was more confused as to what he had done than he was proud of his creation (Sankin).
The first idle game to be a mainstream hit was Cookie Clicker. Created by French developer Julien “Orteil” Thiennot in 2013, Cookie Clicker was a parody of a game called Candy Box[8]. Candy Box is a pseudo-RPG idle game with beautiful ASCII “graphics” built around a slowly ticking timer. Every second you get one candy, which can be spent on supplies to fight monsters, plant lollipop trees, and to bribe suspicious witches in the woods[9] (Candy Box!). Thiennot thought that this “very dull (but strangely entertaining) mechanic” could be made even more ridiculous if the player was forced to make the clock tick by hand. Thiennot threw together a prototype in one night and posted his little experiment on the online forum 4chan (Sankin).
To the surprise of everyone who played it, Cookie Clicker was extremely engaging. An anonymous 4chan user had a minor existential crisis, asking, “H-how am I enjoying this…how?” (qtd. in Sankin). In less than a day, the game Thiennot made on a whim registered over 50,000 players. Nobody was more surprised at Cookie Clicker’s success than Thiennot, who was more confused as to what he had done than he was proud of his creation (Sankin).
I was hella surprised, people were actually playing my joke game unironically! It seemed like the madness kept growing crazier—people were posting their progress, data-mining for secret features, making spreadsheets dedicated to optimizing cookie production, creating mods for the game. At first I couldn’t tell if people were just going along with the joke or actually being serious (qtd. in Sankin).
Cookie Clicker created the genre of idle games in its modern form. Just as copycats of Grand Theft Auto caused it to found the city sandbox genre, Cookie Clicker clones[10] flooded the internet and pushed Cookie Clicker onto a pedestal. These new idle games weren’t in on the joke, they were merely imitating what was already popular. None of these players had ever even heard of Cow Clicker. Cookie Clicker established a baseline for the progression, comedic tone, upgrades, and prestige systems that were replicated by subsequent idle games (Pecorella).
5. Counter-Counter-Games
If we can call Cow Clicker a counter-game, then what of the countless idle games that came after? What of Cookie Clicker? Are they all counter-games as well? I don’t think so. Most modern idle games aren’t even persuasive games. They are not made to mean something, they are made because it is popular and easy.
Cookie Clicker and the idle games that came after are not counter-games, but an even more nebulous counter-counter-game. They aren’t made to express a deeper meaning, but the opposite. Idle games are aggressively meaningless. Cow Clicker countered FarmVille by boiling down its systems to reveal their true nature, thus Cow Clicker is a counter-game. Cookie Clicker then countered Cow Clicker by building off its boiled down system to return it to a state of mindless compulsion. The response to and countering of an existing counter-game is what gives counter-counter-games their moniker.
Thiennot never intended Cookie Clicker to make a statement. Thiennot didn’t set out to make a counter-game, but he did end up with a counter-counter-game. When Thiennot reflected on the post-mortem of his game, he comes up with what he believes is the reason for Cookie Clicker’s success.
Cookie Clicker and the idle games that came after are not counter-games, but an even more nebulous counter-counter-game. They aren’t made to express a deeper meaning, but the opposite. Idle games are aggressively meaningless. Cow Clicker countered FarmVille by boiling down its systems to reveal their true nature, thus Cow Clicker is a counter-game. Cookie Clicker then countered Cow Clicker by building off its boiled down system to return it to a state of mindless compulsion. The response to and countering of an existing counter-game is what gives counter-counter-games their moniker.
Thiennot never intended Cookie Clicker to make a statement. Thiennot didn’t set out to make a counter-game, but he did end up with a counter-counter-game. When Thiennot reflected on the post-mortem of his game, he comes up with what he believes is the reason for Cookie Clicker’s success.
But I suppose you could draw some conclusions about its popularity and the nature of video games - some of which, unfortunately, would be rather cynical, I think what draws people in is simply the idea of accumulating large amounts of things over time - cookies, gold coins, experience ... As the players gain more stuff, they feel less and less like quitting because they'd have wasted all the time they've invested into it. As with MMOs though, there almost always comes a moment of "sudden clarity" where the player realizes how pointless it all is, and decide to leave the game (at least until the next update!) ("The Cult of the Cookie Clicker: When Is a Game Not a Game?").
Counter-counter games share a strange relationship with persuasive games because, unlike counter-games, they do not always have an intended meaning in their development. Counter-games must be full of purpose, designed to evoke a certain response from the player. Counter-counter-games, on the other hand, can be either purposeful or accidental. Thiennot never set out for Cookie Clicker to argue against Cow Clicker, but he managed to turn Bogost’s argument on its head anyway. Cookie Clicker would not be considered persuasive game because it did not set out to achieve that goal. Arguments within counter-counter games can also be purposeful. If Thiennot had in fact set out for Cookie Clicker to refute Bogost’s argument, it would still be countering a counter-game while also falling under the category of a persuasive game.
Cookie Clicker challenged the criticisms raised by Cow Clicker, not when it used Bogost’s sarcastic mechanics sincerely, but when the public decided that its overtly abusive mechanics created a game that they want to play. Idle games are just as bad as, if not worse than, the coldhearted social game that inspired their creation. Exponential growth masks a never-ending grind. James Portnow describes them as “the distilled perfection of the model that Zynga tried to employ with games like FarmVille” (Extra Credits - Idle Games - How Games Scratch Your Multitasking Itch). It is cruel irony that idle games spawned from a game that tries to stop developers from abusing their audience. Ian Bogost designed Cow Clicker to be the hand sanitizer that wipes out the virus called FarmVille, but in the process, he accidentally created a supergerm.
Everybody knows that idle games embody all the worst aspects of social games. Everybody knows that they are little more than skinner boxes dressed up with cows or cookies. Everybody knows that they aren’t even having fun. But nobody cares. That’s the scary thing. People know that they’re being manipulated, that they’re just watching numbers get bigger and bigger, but they still cannot stop clicking that damn cow.
All is not lost, however. This is not the Cowpocalypse. Just because idle games choose to be meaningless, doesn’t mean that the messages of Cow Clicker are rendered meaningless as well. In fact, Cow Clicker is even more meaningful than it was before Cookie Clicker came along. The historical context of Bogost’s fight against Zynga remains as the driving force behind the development of Cow Clicker. That was not lost. Cow Clicker now stands as a beacon, released two years before Cookie Clicker took the internet by storm, warning us of the dangerous road we now walk. The countless counter-counter-games that came after Cow Clicker imbued Bogost’s wok with new meaning, or at the very least proved the inevitability of what he was trying so desperately to caution us against.
Cookie Clicker challenged the criticisms raised by Cow Clicker, not when it used Bogost’s sarcastic mechanics sincerely, but when the public decided that its overtly abusive mechanics created a game that they want to play. Idle games are just as bad as, if not worse than, the coldhearted social game that inspired their creation. Exponential growth masks a never-ending grind. James Portnow describes them as “the distilled perfection of the model that Zynga tried to employ with games like FarmVille” (Extra Credits - Idle Games - How Games Scratch Your Multitasking Itch). It is cruel irony that idle games spawned from a game that tries to stop developers from abusing their audience. Ian Bogost designed Cow Clicker to be the hand sanitizer that wipes out the virus called FarmVille, but in the process, he accidentally created a supergerm.
Everybody knows that idle games embody all the worst aspects of social games. Everybody knows that they are little more than skinner boxes dressed up with cows or cookies. Everybody knows that they aren’t even having fun. But nobody cares. That’s the scary thing. People know that they’re being manipulated, that they’re just watching numbers get bigger and bigger, but they still cannot stop clicking that damn cow.
All is not lost, however. This is not the Cowpocalypse. Just because idle games choose to be meaningless, doesn’t mean that the messages of Cow Clicker are rendered meaningless as well. In fact, Cow Clicker is even more meaningful than it was before Cookie Clicker came along. The historical context of Bogost’s fight against Zynga remains as the driving force behind the development of Cow Clicker. That was not lost. Cow Clicker now stands as a beacon, released two years before Cookie Clicker took the internet by storm, warning us of the dangerous road we now walk. The countless counter-counter-games that came after Cow Clicker imbued Bogost’s wok with new meaning, or at the very least proved the inevitability of what he was trying so desperately to caution us against.
Notes
- A core mechanic is the primary mechanic the player interacts with (Brathwaite and Schreiber).
- The Skinner Box, or the operant conditioning chamber, trains an animal to perform certain actions in response to positive or negative reinforcement (McLeod).
- The Sunk Cost Fallacy: The more time, money, or other resources you put into an activity, the less likely you are to stop (Thaler).
- Created by Ian Bogost, A Slow Year is a collection of four games – one for each season – about the experience of observing the world (Bogost, "A Slow Year").
- Mooney: both a portmantua of Moo + Money, and the Vice President of Zynga
- But not created because of; Cookie Clicker has the honor of founding the genre.
- Of course, Farmville was more than a simple skinner box, see "Motivational game design patterns of 'ville games" for more details (Lewis et al).
- Ironically, Candy Box’s developer Aniwey specifically says that the game in no way a commentary on or parody of social games (Good).
- Candy Box is a bit different than the types of idle games that we are talking about here. Candy Box is finite, can be beaten, and is more puzzle-like and exploration based than idle games proper. A Dark Room by Michael Townsend and Amir Rajan is another good example of this sort of idle game (A Dark Room).
- To the more blatant of rip-offs, Thiennot complains, “I’d say those are pretty vile and lazy. I mean, can’t they at least come up with something else than cookies?” (qtd. in Sankin).
Works Cited
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Bogost, Ian, PHD. "Cow Clicker The Making of Obsession." Blog post. Bogost. N.p., 21 July 2010. Web.
Bogost, Ian, PHD. "Making a Mockery: Ruminations on COW CLICKER." Game Developers Conference Online. The Georgia Institute of Technology, Austin, TX. Fall 2010. Gdcvault. Web.
Bogost, Ian, PHD. Persuasive Games : The Expressive Power of Videogames. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2007. EBook Collection. Web.
Brathwaite, Brenda, and Ian Schreiber. "1: The Basics." Challenges for Game Designers: Non-digtal Exercises for Video Game Designers. Boston, MA: Course Technology, 2009. N. pag. Print.
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Vagamundo: A Migrant’s Tale. Zuñiga, Ricardo Miranda. 2003. Video game.
Bogost, Ian, PHD. "A Slow Year." Ian Bogost. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://bogost.com/games/aslowyear/>.
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Bogost, Ian, PHD. "Cow Clicker The Making of Obsession." Blog post. Bogost. N.p., 21 July 2010. Web.
Bogost, Ian, PHD. "Making a Mockery: Ruminations on COW CLICKER." Game Developers Conference Online. The Georgia Institute of Technology, Austin, TX. Fall 2010. Gdcvault. Web.
Bogost, Ian, PHD. Persuasive Games : The Expressive Power of Videogames. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2007. EBook Collection. Web.
Brathwaite, Brenda, and Ian Schreiber. "1: The Basics." Challenges for Game Designers: Non-digtal Exercises for Video Game Designers. Boston, MA: Course Technology, 2009. N. pag. Print.
"Browse Recently Popular Games." Kongregate. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.kongregate.com/most-played-games>.
Candy Box!. “aniwey”. 2013. Video game.
Cookie Clicker. Thiennot, Julien “Orteil”. 2013. Video game.
Cow Clicker. Bogost, Ian, PHD. 2011. Video game.
Extra Credits - Idle Games - How Games Scratch Your Multitasking Itch. By James Portnow. Perf. Daniel Floyd. YouTube. YouTube, 3 Dec. 2014. Web.
Good, Owen. "Candy Box: A Game That's Simple, Sweet, and Strangely Compelling." Kotaku. Kotaku.com, 05 May 2013. Web.
Lewis, Chris, et al. "Motivational game design patterns of 'ville games." Proceedings of the International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games. ACM, 2012.
McLeod, Saul. "Saul McLeod." B.F. Skinner | Operant Conditioning | Simply Psychology. N.p., 01 Jan. 1970. Web.
Mooney, Bill. "Best New Social/Online Game." GDC 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards. 11 May 2010. GameSpot. Web. <https://www.gamespot.com/videos/gdc-2010-game-developers-choice-awards/2300-6253472/>.
Pecorella, Anthony. "Idle Games: The Mechanics and Monetization of Self-Playing Games." Game Developers Conference 2015. Moscone Center, San Francisco, CA. 7 Mar. 2015. Gdcvault. Web.
"Progress Quest." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 04 Apr. 2017. Web. 25 Apr. 2017.
Sankin, Aaron. "The most addictive new game on the Internet is making fun of you for playing it." The Daily Dot. N.p., 25 Feb. 2017. Web.
Tanz, Jason. "The Curse of Cow Clicker: How a Cheeky Satire Became a Videogame Hit." Wired 20.01 (2011): n. pag. 20 Dec. 2011. Web.
Thaler, Richard. "Toward a positive theory of consumer choice." Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 1.1 (1980): 39-60. Web.
"The Cult of the Cookie Clicker: When Is a Game Not a Game?" Herald-Review.com. McClatchy-Tribune News Service, 08 Oct. 2013. Web. <http://herald-review.com/entertainment/video-games/the-cult-of-the-cookie-clicker-when-is-a-game/article_66e19dd4-2b7b-11e3-9b3c-001a4bcf887a.html>.
Vagamundo: A Migrant’s Tale. Zuñiga, Ricardo Miranda. 2003. Video game.