Boredom and streaming video games
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Robbie Fordyce
20 January 2021
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On how we see boredom as central to the operations of streaming, video games and Netflix.
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- Overview
Fordyce, R. and Apperley, T.H., 2021. Exhausting Choices. Reading Black Mirror: Insights into Technology and the Post-Media Condition, 75-87. transcript-Verlag
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839452325-005
01. Overview
I wrote about the Bandersnatch game on Netflix, where I suggested that the game itself was essentially just an extension of the browsing interface for the films and shows on Netflix. While this is partly about a game, it’s also about the Netflix platform itself. The game only allows you to choose from a range of limited options, and at some points you have to repeat stuff over and over again to get to the point where you can continue the story. Each fork in the path of the overall narrative for Bandersnatch is presented to you as a simple choice – the choice to do one thing or the other, usually, but never questioning the idea that you might not want to keep scrolling.
Sometimes the choices are boring and limited. In a way each choice you can make within Bandersnatch is a microcosm of a new story. Like browsing Netflix, nothing about the game is particularly exciting, and I think this signals something interesting about how we tolerate boredom on digital platforms.
I wrote this with my friend Tom Apperley, and it was published in Reading Black Mirror as Exhausting Choices.
Sometimes the choices are boring and limited. In a way each choice you can make within Bandersnatch is a microcosm of a new story. Like browsing Netflix, nothing about the game is particularly exciting, and I think this signals something interesting about how we tolerate boredom on digital platforms.
I wrote this with my friend Tom Apperley, and it was published in Reading Black Mirror as Exhausting Choices.