I think it would be interesting to discover/teach general heuristics on how to improve each axis respectively.
A side note here: I have always thought about why people (myself included) prefer to do certain things (such as playing video games/watching movies/etc) to doing other things (such as reading research papers, solving novel problems in science, etc). When I play a strategy game I am solving problems and when I am doing AI research I am still solving problems. I love doing them both, but there is a part of me (The devil side ?) that prefers to play strategy games to doing AI research for my master’s. Even though both require intense focus and utilize a lot of system 2 thinking, meaning need a lot will power. I have been thinking about this a lot. I think this is mainly because the feedback loop for playing a strategy game is:
Faster because each match takes about 1 − 2 hours in contrast to research which takes at least a day to see the results of a single experiment.
Less Noisy because you directly experience the results of your actions. This is even more true in FPS games. This is more true in 1v1 video games compared to team based video games and is in contrast to academic research where your result is dependent on open-source software, coordination with your professor, academic politics, etc.
More rich because there are tons of video game graphics involved. e.g: You can see your score going up or down directly and don’t need to track it yourself. In contrast to research where you have to track everything yourself and the graphics and diagrams are pretty dull.
I think people working in video game design with the goal of making video games that are more rewarding and addictive can provide some insights into heuristics for improving each of the axes.
I think it would be interesting to discover/teach general heuristics on how to improve each axis respectively.
A side note here: I have always thought about why people (myself included) prefer to do certain things (such as playing video games/watching movies/etc) to doing other things (such as reading research papers, solving novel problems in science, etc). When I play a strategy game I am solving problems and when I am doing AI research I am still solving problems. I love doing them both, but there is a part of me (The devil side ?) that prefers to play strategy games to doing AI research for my master’s. Even though both require intense focus and utilize a lot of system 2 thinking, meaning need a lot will power. I have been thinking about this a lot. I think this is mainly because the feedback loop for playing a strategy game is:
Faster because each match takes about 1 − 2 hours in contrast to research which takes at least a day to see the results of a single experiment.
Less Noisy because you directly experience the results of your actions. This is even more true in FPS games. This is more true in 1v1 video games compared to team based video games and is in contrast to academic research where your result is dependent on open-source software, coordination with your professor, academic politics, etc.
More rich because there are tons of video game graphics involved. e.g: You can see your score going up or down directly and don’t need to track it yourself. In contrast to research where you have to track everything yourself and the graphics and diagrams are pretty dull.
I think people working in video game design with the goal of making video games that are more rewarding and addictive can provide some insights into heuristics for improving each of the axes.