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Notes -
Actually, Halo has quite prominently featured multiplayer since its inception!
How does this theory handle abstract puzzlers like Baba is You? Or even pure math puzzles like Sudoku? Obviously, demonstrating clever puzzle-solving is worth some social status, but that’s not why people do these things. No, they do them because they’re fun.
I suspect curiosity, attention, and the little thrill one gets from a solved puzzle are embedded pretty deeply in our evolutionary history. Probably deeper than socially-mediated value.
I’m familiar with the Halo franchise. People played the solo campaign as the key feature of the game. There was also a split screen mode. But the campaign was enjoyable as a social validation simulator.
This was huge during the sudoku craze around 2004, reinforced by “sudoku is good for your brain”, but I don’t know how popular it still is. It has been squarely defeated (pun intended) by the much more social NYT games. I wonder if any kids play it. Perhaps even sudoku was socially-mediated: news says solving it means you are smart, also it’s popular, you feel smart and popular when you play and win.
I used to think this, and it falls in line with the Flow theory, but I’m starting to doubt it. Curiosity and attention seem to be profoundly shaped by social forces. Do crows solve puzzles for fun or do they do it for food?
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