Rapid feedback keeps attention from drifting between moments of action

The argument

The second argument for this explanation concerns what happens within a round rather than between rounds. Proponents point out that the gap between actions is the moment at which a player's attention is most likely to wander, and that in slower games a substantial share of a session is spent travelling, waiting, preparing or searching. Each of those intervals is an opportunity to notice that one is bored, to check something else, or to stop playing altogether. A fast game shortens or removes the intervals. Engagements arrive quickly, the result of each arrives immediately, and the consequence of a mistake is a brief interruption rather than the loss of a long investment. Proponents argue that this produces a tight loop of action and result in which attention is continuously occupied, and they hold that an experience of that kind is unusually hard to put down, not because it is deeper than the alternatives but because it never provides the pause in which a player would decide to. Proponents accept that this is a claim about engagement rather than about merit, and they regard that as a strength. The question asked is why the franchise is popular rather than why it is good, and popularity is produced by people continuing to play. On this reading pace explains the continuing better than either depth, which most players do not pursue, or simplicity, which explains how a player starts without saying anything about why they stay.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Opponents argue that the account describes a property of many fast games and so does not pick out this one, and that games with long periods of waiting and preparation have sustained very large audiences, which tells directly against the premise about gaps. They also question whether continuous occupation is what players actually seek, noting that the intervals treated here as dead time are often where anticipation, planning and conversation with teammates happen, and that removing them can make a game tiring rather than engaging.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Opponents hold that gaps are also where anticipation, planning and conversation happen, so they sustain attention rather than threatening it. [Rejecting P2] Games with long periods of waiting and preparation have sustained very large audiences, which tells against the claim about slower games. [Rejecting P3] Continuous occupation can make a session tiring rather than engaging, so the loop described does not straightforwardly produce continued play. [Rejecting C] The property described belongs to many fast games, so it does not explain the popularity of this franchise in particular.