Gamer’s Instinct – The Language of Video Games

March 29th, 2008

zelda wind waker gamers instinct

Have you ever noticed that when you start playing some games that aren’t necessarily ‘pick up and play’ games that you instantly can come to grips with the gaming environment without previous instruction? That you already understand how to play before the game has taught you. Have you then tested this example with a less experienced player (maybe a friend or parent) only to find that they take a considerably longer time to adapt?

It is said that a positive quality which game players posses is the ability to adapt to the ever changing variables within their environment. That is we can move form one experience to another (be it virtual or real life) and adapt quicker than our non game playing counterparts. This strange phenomena to adapt to different games, naturally is something I wish to explore. For the sake of this article I will dub this phenomena; ‘Gamer’s Instinct’.

How Do We Form a Gamer’s Instinct?

Simple, through playing games. As we play games our brain begins to notice patterns, we notice that we can use a particular technique to dodge some enemies and not others, we notice that if we jump down a hole we lose a life. Game developers use learning by trial and error (or learning by curiosity) to teach players how to play the way they want their game to be played.

For gamers, years of play has resulted in an insurmountable catalog of stored expectations. We know that breaking pots will reveal secret goodies and that killing all of the enemies in a room will make that invisible wall disappear. A ridiculous number of these variables are stored in our subconsciousness as we play.

Properties

Gamer’s Instinct doesn’t have to be a skill forged out by years of constant adaption. Gamer’s Instinct varies significantly based on experience. As human beings everyone has some sort of Gamer’s Instinct, even if they’ve never played a game before. We all have our own expectations of how to play.

Gamer’s Instinct varies dependent on the games which we choose to play. Someone whom plays a lot of first person shooter games obviously has built up a large amount of Gamer’s Instinct within the FPS genre and as such they can move from different FPS games/maps/scenarios with little time required to adapt.

On the other hand gamers who play a great variety of games are much better at adapting to any game and not just on a set genre.
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