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FiftyTwo comments on Open thread, 11-17 March 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: David_Gerard 11 March 2014 10:45PM

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Comment author: FiftyTwo 20 March 2014 02:05:56AM 5 points [-]

Is there an explanation of why games like 2048 are so addictive? I want to say superstimulus but its not obviously substituting for something in the ancestral environment, its not quite a classical skinner box setup either

Comment author: Nornagest 20 March 2014 11:28:41PM 2 points [-]

I was wondering about that myself after I lost a couple of hours to the damn thing. I think it's mostly that it hits exactly the right balance of complication/reward to get people into a flow state and keep them there, although its exceptional interface qualities probably help: simple, intuitive moves, immediate feedback, no menus or other abstraction layers to get between you and the game.