I have a minor addiction to matching games.  The kind that multicoloured jewels, candy, fruit, bubbles, bugs, monsters… fall from the top and three or more need to be matched.  The goals are varied with either as many points as possible in a specific amount of time, a specific amount of points in a set amount of moves, or moving something from the top to a spot on the bottom in a set number of moves.  For a long time, I only had one.  It had its ‘sticker and a juice box rewards’ (what the kids and I call arbitrary rewards for accomplishing things that were necessary or you would have accomplished or done anyway), accumulation of ‘coins’, special boosts.  It was just something empty to do when the brain wouldn’t disengage or I didn’t have enough energy to tackle something real.  There are loads of games out there, thousands of variations on the same basic themes. Some are better than others, but many seem to jump on the reward/punishment bandwagon.  I thought I would venture out and check out a couple of other matching type games.

“You failed”… Other than my first matching game, all my recent investigations tell me this with regularity.  They tell me this with dramatically sad faces, animated tears, and slumped, heaving shoulders.  These are games with random colours falling in random patterns and depending on this randomness and my ability to see patterns I either complete the goal or don’t. That is not failure.  A bridge collapsing or an engine seizing or a disastrous term paper, those things are failures. When I am successful I am showered with platitudes: you are fabulous, you are wonderful, delightful, you are amazing… somehow I have established world peace, found cures for all the devastating diseases in the world, and found a solution for poverty, all from matching a bunch of random doohickies.  I don’t understand.  Why, when I am unable to complete a level or solve a puzzle the game has to tell me I ‘failed’.  Failed is such a loaded word, one I know I have been conditioned to cringe at when heard.  Failing in school, structural failure, mechanical failure, failure to yield… these all indicate really bad things.  Having a game say to me “You’ve failed” and then having the cutesy and irritating animated creature give me sad face and slumped shoulders (I am sure there is probably an equally irritating sound that accompanies it, but I never play games un-muted)… my reaction edges on hostile.

I understand some of the things the people who design the game apps are trying to accomplish: popularity, entertainment value, cash flow, repeat customers, continued success.  There is a lot of manipulation involved to accomplish these things. The dangling carrot.  Buy more tokens so you can buy more time, lives, new levels.  Buy this special thingy and it will make these challenges so much easier (you are doomed unless you buy the special thingy for the bargain price of $14.99, in this awesome free game).  There is a lot of use of the desire for instant gratification.  You’ve run out of ‘lives’, buy more and you can keep playing OR you have to wait for an hour(s) while your ‘lives’ regenerate.  You’ve completed the levels “Yay.” now you have to wait three days to access the next level pack OR you can buy it now.  So we live with the manipulation to continue playing time filling entertainment…

When I have “You failed” flashed at me, I am not inclined to continue the game to prove anything, I am not inclined to find other games by the same company, I do not wish to make any in app purchases to increase my game playing pleasure.  The platitudes that are flashed across the screen when I complete the level are equally annoying.  The formula must be successful for so many games by so many designers and companies to embrace it so completely.  Well, I choose not to be manipulated by my mindless entertainment. One, two, three, four…uninstall, bother me no more.