Why We Still Play Idle Games

 

I did it again. I got into another Idle Game. This week's culprit is Exponential Idle, a free to play game where all you do is watch numbers go up. I'm not even being abstract; the whole game is a math equation that does nothing but get bigger and bigger. And I love it.

Why do we do this? You're probably guilty of this mindset of thinking a game is just mindless, then spending hours upon hours on it. So what causes this?

Every idle game has a set formula. Start with instant progress. Give the player a sense of accomplishment. Then, slowly make the achievements slower but doable with enough time. The player now becomes used to the gimmick of, "Hey maybe if I grind for this amount of minutes, I can get the shiny thing." Just these two things alone can make anyone hooked.

Then, once the achievements get further apart, the final element comes into play: the idle part. The game progresses even with offline. When the player is bored, they can go about their day, come back, and find the instant progress which starts the cycle all over again.

When broken down like this, it sounds like a 12 year old made up the concept. This idea still keeps working and still makes money so it's not going away, ever.