3 ms·

There's a curious psychological effect where talking about your plans and receiving anticipatory praise can decrease motivation. It's part of the general way t

• bomdo 5y ago
  To add insult to injury, writing a press release like this (even including a screenshot with the very latest stuff) can feel just as good as actually shipping. At this point, eclipsing the story of "the cool game that never shipped" with an actual game is a very high bar indeed.
• reedf1 5y ago
  Exactly - you are robbing your dopamine reward loop by "stealing" the dopamine hit usually reserved for accomplishment or achievement with the comparatively easy and low-effort social reward of stating your aspirations.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• jan_Inkepa 5y ago
  I'm not sure where this thread of psychologising is coming from. It feels very peculiar. I think you have to be pretty motivated to work on an unreleased game for a decade (and make consistent progress over that period). I think doubting the team's motivations, intrinsic or otherwise, is misplaced here. Working on a project essentially in private for a long time can be really draining to the motivations. Being able to be a bit open about parts of it can help a lot with motivation for development. Yes there are possible second-order effects of games getting warped depending on external factors, but I don't see any evidence of that here. The team is making progress towards making a game they want to make.
• fouric 5y ago
  There was a post on HN a few years ago that I believe linked to scientific evidence of this, but unfortunately I cannot find that post, nor do I remember the specific terminology that the paper(s) used.