Money, of course, is the driving force behind most game design, not happiness. There are ulterior motives to invoking flow, especially in business.” “Developers of video games and apps design their technologies specifically in order to produce these intense states of concentration, to addict people to these kinds of experiences,” says Soderman. In his new book, Against Flow: Video Games and the Flowing Subject (MIT Press, 2021), Soderman, assistant professor of film and media studies at the University of California, Irvine, aims to “create a little turbulence in the smooth flow.” Among his criticisms of flow in relation to video gaming is that it can be used to manipulate players for profit and socially isolate them. But video game scholar Braxton Soderman urges caution. Called “flow,” this profoundly immersive state is familiar to artists, musicians and athletes, and has become a popular topic for self-help gurus, business leaders and fitness trainers. Video gamers can spend hours intensely focused on leveling up-progressing to the next level of skill and challenge-in a virtual world, while their everyday troubles fade into the background.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |