Long blabing on interactivity

Interactivity.

Following the discussion on Monday about games and interactivity, I get to speak up now what I wish I’d said earlier. The two big things that came to mind are gratification (in the instant and delayed sense), and scaled challenges.

Gratification is discussed in psychology classes, which I took about a decade ago. There is the baser, animalistic, ID powered instant gratification. Also there is the ‘human’ ‘rational,’ SUPER EGO powered delayed gratification. They did tests with kids, offering them 2 treats now or 4 treats later.

No, that’s a mis-remember on my part; looking up on good ole Wikipedia I find:

They gave the kids 1 marshmallow, and told them they would get another if they could hold and not eat the first one for 20 min. Some did, some didn’t. The study was done in the 60s, and the researches apparently followed the children’s development through to SAT testing. The patient kids, unsurprisingly, did better on average of about 210 points and “were better adjusted and more dependable” according to parents and teachers.

I’m going to shy away from the question of where this is learned and if the ape that could use tools and fish for termites got more protein and a better upper build than the lazy fruit snatcher. Establish that delayed gratification is difficult and learned and that on an ID level we want the instant and are happy when we get it.

Another class discussion was about internet load times also, how it used to be a long 30 or 60 seconds was ok, now anything over 3 seconds makes us grumble. There’s no reward for delayed gratification other than not stressing that the clicked hyperlink isn’t and instant reward of the loaded page, but we still really fundamentally like the instant response from the computer.

Oh wait, interactivity is the title? I should talk about that.

I still like the phrase “Action Reaction” to represent the distilled essence of interactivity. I click the button, the screen changes. I move to the side, the painting looks different. I lift the shovel, the snow moves from the driveway to the yard. Most of these are pleasing, instant reactions to my existence and actions.

The gaming interactivity… thing… works well or better because it works on several senses (at least sight and sound, also feel if you enable vibrate in you wii-mote), and from the suspension of disbelief or telling yourself ‘this is real’ as your armless Mii hits a smoking t ace in tennis. The instant gratification of the interaction is the changes on the screen and the sound of the crowd going ‘ooh.’ But I think there is delayed gratification too, or something similar to it, in making the 1000 point pro rating.

The challenge inherit in the game doesn’t extend well to all aspects of interactivity; typing this document is interaction but not challengingly so, the challenge is composing the words. In the tennis game there is reward for winning multiple games; the points and pro rating, that is a longer term task or effort than simply hitting the ball successfully a few times. This is the draw of RPGs, working for a day or a month to reach that next level, and get the cool sound effect and lights and skill points and armor graphics. Sure your night elf does a sexy dance instantly when you type in a command, but that little reward is just something to keep you going, and to make you wonder what the dance looks like in the new purple armor.

I’m not sure this should be called delayed gratification, but it is a long term effort with a ‘bigger’ reward because of the time and effort involved

Wow long post.

Quick touch into the scaled challenges idea. We like it when the challenge of something isn’t really easy but possible. We’re ok with it when we don’t get the timing of a wii-tennis ace serve every time because that makes the successes the sweeter. That’s similar to the AI mii opponents becoming harder to beat as one’s score increases.

OK I’m done.

Blarg.