Cognitive Flow

     

      Video games are difficult to create as a whole, there is a lot of work that goes into it. Although it may come to you as a surprise, one of the major things that go into creating a video game is psychology. In order to keep video games intriguing and drawing to the eye and the brain, the creators must think about the psychological factors of the human brain and the game itself. The goal is always to create a game that won't make people feel anxious, but also won't make people bored. It has to be a perfect balance between a persons skill set and difficulty level on the game. This is called  the Cognitive Flow.

Why is Cognitive Flow important? 

        Cognitive flow is a psychological term that video game creators refer back to when creating a video game. According to Gamastura.com, psychologist Mihaly Csiksgentmihalyi was the one who founded this concept of "cognitive flow" in the 1970s. If a person has a below average skill set and the video game is too difficult this will result in making the player feel anxious and lose the motivation to keep trying to play. If you keep losing the game, you eventually will not want to keep playing. In another sense, if the player's skill set is above average and the game is too easy this will result in the complete opposite. The player will become bored if they can win the game too easily and will not continue to play. So, the goal is to create a good medium. A video game that is challenging enough to keep you interested, but not so challenging that you cant advance in the game. That is cognitive flow. As many of you might have noticed, games that are catered to children tend to be extremely easy for the average adult and games that are catered to adults tend to be extremely hard to the average child. This is why cognitive flow is so important, because the flow of the game must be coherent to the age group/ population they are targeting. Psychologist Mihaly broke down the concept into four parts which include, concrete goals with manageable rules, goals that fit player capabilities, clear and timely feedback, and eliminate distractions. These are the four things video game creators should really pay attention to to make their video game as "addicting" as they possibly can, or in other words to have a high cognitive flow. 

Final Thoughts 

         Cognitive flow is an extremely important part of creating a video game, because the game will never exist without continuous players. If your game isn't a game that can keep its players interesting it will eventually be forgotten and will no longer make any money. This is crucial to a video games and video game companies. I believe that creators should always make sure their cognitive flow is at its highest potential, because players are more likely to buy other games by the same creator if the game they tried was intriguing and "addictive" in a way. It is important to recognize the psychological factors of a video game in order to make it a successful one.

Link:
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/166972/cognitive_flow_the_psychology_of_.php