Game Genre Map: The Cognitive Threshold in Strategy Games
Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry, 2016/01/21

Interesting article that maps popular strategy games against a 'gamer motivation model' - on one dimension, the level of strategy involved in the game, and on the other, the pace and excitement of the game. I tend to prefer high-strategy games and my personal favourite, Civilization, ranks third among them. But it's not high excitement. What's interesting is that an entire quadrant of the chart lies empty, corresponding to high strategy and fast pace. This is the 'cognitive threshold', a place where games are no longer fun (presumably there's also a boredom threshold at the lower left of the diagram). The concept described here is the gamers' version of what educators call 'flow'.

[Link] [Comment]