4 ms·

Don't normal people who score within 1 or 2 standard deviations of mean IQ deserve some entertainment too?

• jarek 15y ago
  Are you suggesting that people within 1 or 2 standard deviations of mean IQ are unable to be entertained by Chrono Trigger?
• michaelochurch 15y ago
  Chrono Trigger definitely does not require a 130+ IQ to enjoy. Maybe 100. This isn't about IQ. There are very high IQ people playing Farmville right now. It's need-for-cognition (NFC); does a person desire intellectual stimulation or not? It's correlated with IQ but not absolute. There are people with high IQs who are happy to shoot beer cans and throw bugs in the bugzapper on summer nights, and likewise to play Mafia Wars. High-NFC games tend to be engaging based on the quality of the game. Does it offer novel challenges and an interesting storyline? Slot machines and Farmville are the epitome of low-NFC games. The problem is that low-NFC games tend to rely on emotional manipulations (fear of "missing out" and social rejection, images of withering crops and dying animals) to get people "hooked" in the game. They're not having fun; they're now psychologically dependent. In extreme cases, people can develop agoraphobia and anxiety disorders. These "addiction" problems can happen just as easily with high-NFC games (Warcraft, Magic: the Gathering) but there are two differences. First, people tend to graduate from high-NFC games into something else. They put away the Magic cards and start coding. They get tired of merely playing Minecraft and start building levels. Second, with high-NFC games the "addiction" problem is a very rare side effect. In low-NFC games, it's part of the design.