I have a confession. I'm an incremental games junkie. My phone is full of them. I spend an inordinate amount of time pulling out my phone to check on my imaginary bakeries, cities, and farms. There is no goal, and no real purpose, aside from seeing how far I can get.
I hid my obsession for a long time, until I discovered that a lot of other people are hooked on these kinds of games. That got me thinking- if several million people are downloading and playing these games, then they must have some kind of universal appear. What is it? Why do so many people find playing these games, which have no plot, purpose, or end, so satisfying?
Incremental games, also called "clicker games" or "idle games", are a genre of computer and video games that have exploded in popularity over the last couple years. Each game is a bit different, but they all tend to revolve around a central mechanic: you click or tap an icon of some kind to generate numerical units. When you have enough units, you can "buy" an object that slowly generates those units for you. After a while, you can afford more of these objects, until you are rapidly producing units at an exponentially increasing rate. The goal, if it can be said there is a goal, is to make the units increase ever-faster.
Let me give you an example. One of the most popular incremental games available is called Cookie Clicker. It was actually started as a joke, but eventually became so popular that the designer, Orteil, now makes money off of merchandising it. Cookie Clicker is a simple game. You click a giant, inviting cookie on the left side of the screen. After a couple hundred clicks, you can purchase some upgrades that click the cookie on your behalf. Then, you wait. Eventually, you can buy better upgrades. Then you wait some more.
Sounds fun, right? No? If I hadn't experienced it myself, I would have scoffed too. However, once you start, it's difficult to stop. The game is just fun. You find yourself checking it a few times a day, a browser tab forever open and churning out billions upon billions of imaginary cookies.
But why? What is it about this particular genre that people find so enticing?
It turns out that it has to do with the way our brain rewards us for accomplishing things. Anyone who has studied psychology might be familiar with B.F. Skinner, a famous scientist who performed experiments on animal behavior inside boxes he had constructed to house them. These Skinner Boxes, as they came to be known, demonstrated that animals will repeat simple tasks for a reward pretty much indefinitely. It turns out, humans will too.
These types of game mechanics (which, by the way, can also be found in wildly popular games such as World of Warcraft) create a pleasurable and addictive psychological feedback loop that keep us coming back for more. Because, although we know we're not actually accomplishing anything, it feels really good to make those numbers go up.
Also, it turns out that we're hardwired to enjoy accumulating things, which is probably why we all have a friend or family member who collects figurines or knick-knacks that have no function but still bring them joy.
Incremental games are fun, but they have a darker side. As I mentioned, they are addictive. I don't mean addictive in the "just binge-watched four seasons of this show I found on Netflix" way. I mean addictive in the "I'm actually having trouble focusing on homework or willing myself to go to work at this point" way.
Like anything else that triggers the brain's reward pathways, incremental games have the potential to keep you coming back, even long after the games have stopped being novel. Additionally, because the games constantly dole out a sense of accomplishment, you might find yourself feeling good about reaching the next level of your clicker game, and then substituting that good feeling for something like going to the gym or getting ahead on homework. In other words, these games can be misleading if you're not careful.
That being said, incremental games are worth a glance, even if it doesn't sound like something you'd normally enjoy. They are free, numerous, and often have communities of dedicated players who are willing to help newcomers. I have saved tons of money and relieved a ton of stress by having access to these kinds of games over the course of college. It sounds silly, but knowing that my games are still there, crunching numbers and making progress even while I sleep, gives me something to look forward to. They also make great games to play while doing homework, as they only require input every half hour or so.
Like them or not, incremental games are everywhere these days, and because they deliberately utilize human psychology to be as addictive as possible, they're here to stay.
