What do we expect to get out of a game? On some level, I think there has to be at least some expectation that it be more than just a way to kill time, a way to engage with something you might not otherwise engage with. I suspect there’s the general expectation that a game be fun, or at least be more interesting than the life it’s providing an escape from, though having played World of Warcraft and sacrificed many days off to grinding instances, I could argue the requirement that a game be fun is debatable. At the very least, though, there is an assumption that a game ought to provide something that makes the time spent playing it worth it. If it doesn’t, why play the game? Why spend time doing this at all?

Welcome to Hell. Enjoy the buffet.

The Button is a very simple game. There is a button. You click the button. Every time you click the button, the number on the button goes up by one, and the odds of the button resetting and clearing all accumulated points increases by 1%. There is no reward at the other end. There is nothing that can be done to alter the outcome. All there is is the button and you, making the decision of whether or not to press, and knowing that, inevitably, the number will reset to zero. The Button is an exercise in futility, punctuated only by the dialogue the developer has with the player along the way about that futility and the insanity of choosing to engage with it.

You and me both, Elendow. You and me both.

The dialogue with the developer is one of the few external motivations to stay and click the button. Each click presents a potential for a new quip from the developer. Each milestone is marked by a new mantra, reiterating the futility of the player’s actions and asking why they’re still here at all. Eventually, though, even these loop, and there is no longer this slight motivation to keep clicking.

And yet, I continued to click. I watched the number on the button tick up, then erase itself in an endless cycle. Over and over, time after time, the same pattern repeating.

Why am I still here?

A screenshot from Button

Imagine, for a moment, there exists a creature that knows everything about the entirety of the past and present. It knows everything that has ever happened, and everything that happens now, in whenever that sliding now might be. It also understands the fundamental laws that govern the universe, and thus understands the context for all its knowledge. If this creature understands and knows the context for all things that have ever been, and understands and knows the context for all things that now are, could we say that it can also know everything that will happen in the future? If the universe is governed by a set of knowable laws, and those laws remain the same, the knowledge of everything that has ever been and the knowledge of the laws that brought it to that point ought to be enough to predict what will be. The course of the universe and everything in it is known, and therefore set. There is no free will, only the illusion of it.

I, with my human mind, can’t know which press of the button resets it, only that eventually, one will. Knowing this, I still persist, because what other choice do I have? The outcome may be set from the start, but the only way to find out what it is is to engage. It’s only if I step away that anything changes.

But I and Elendow both know I won’t.

A screenshot from Button

Free will is a problem that has been approached from a variety of angles and fields of study. While I find the philosophical argument and Laplace’s demon convincing, psychology also presents an interesting argument against the existence of free will.

In the late 1920s, a psychologist named B.F. Skinner conducted an experiment using rats and a box. The experiment was simple. The rats had a button that, when pressed, would give them a treat. This box could be modified to add more stimuli and more things for the button to do, such as disabling loud noises, turning lights on or off, or a host of other things. In each case, the rats learned to push a button for the desired outcome, and, even if the desired outcome was removed, they would continue to press the button in the hopes that it would come back. This is called operant conditioning, and it manipulates the fundamental processes of the brain to induce a particular behaviour. We stop considering the logic of our behaviour and act in the way we’ve been trained to act. Our past experiences inform our current actions, even if we aren’t aware of it, and even if it makes no sense for them to do so. The course of our lives was set from the start, and the universe once again becomes deterministic.

The interesting thing about operant conditioning is that we know it works on humans. When a parent potty trains their child, for instance, that is an exercise in operant conditioning. A desired behaviour is rewarded until the child instinctually does the desired behaviour, even though there is no reward on the other end. Operant conditioning is how casinos and lootboxes are so effective. Operant conditioning is what keeps players grinding at raids and poring over loot tables in WoW. As games become a more and more fundamental part of every person’s existence, operant conditioning is expressed through an increased gamification in all elements of life, from language learning to cooking to daily functionality itself.

We are conditioned. We are trained to engage, even if we don’t think about it, and even if, when we do think about it, it makes no sense to do so. We do not have free will.

A screenshot from Button

I have written over a hundred reviews in this series. I have played video games since I was child, and I know how they’re meant to work. I know that, when the button is pressed, something happens, and it is worth the little shot of serotonin to click the button and see the result, even if that result is pointless. Even if the result is detrimental, when I have no options but to engage or step away, I will engage, at least until that part of my brain that does its best to apply rationality to my actions steps in and places a gentle hand across mine.

This is the training I - and likely you - have buried inside us, this assumption that an action has meaning, has an outcome, has purpose. I click the button because I am informed, not by logic, but by decades of conditioning that tell me that pressing this button will do something. I am rewarded by a brain who assumes that this outcome, like all before it, is governed by the same fundamental laws, and is gratified to assume it is correct. I click, not because I believe there is a grand reward at the end, but because clicking is itself the reward.

The Button is a game that lays bare the reality of all other games. It is a game that understands the futility of gaming as a whole and the meaning we ascribe to it. It understands that the actions we take in games are less our own, and more the product of years, if not decades, of training. The Button knows this, and The Button invites you to discover that for yourself.

I click, and in so doing, I dig myself deeper.

I click, though I know there is no reward.

I simply click.

Developer: Elendow

Genre: Tactile, Indie, Casual

Year: 2023

Country: Spain

Language: English

Play Time: /Clickclickclickclick

Youtube: https://youtu.be/XwF8rzeU1XU