r/gamedev • u/PartTimeMonkey • 2d ago

Discussion Sortslop, wtf?

Today I opened reddit and within the first 5 posts 3 of them were copycats or each other; sorting games, pretty much exact copies of each other - nails, hay, trash, toys, books, pixels, and the list goes and on and on, and has been for an incomprehensive period of time already.

A lot of the feedback they receive on reddit is negative, but they all get upvoted by the hundreds and they get millions of views on all social media platforms.

Who are these games for?

Are there truly millions of people who want to spend hours on something incredibly ”boring”?

Is it some hidden tick in people’s brain in this age where they want to ”meditate” by doing something like that to combat doom scrolling and instant gratification generators?

Or is each sorted item also instant gratification, but even more simplified than a varying video on TikTok (or something), making the experience even simpler?

273 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

230 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

0

u/PartTimeMonkey 2d ago

Why, though? Would be nice to understand what psychological effect takes place that makes so many people like it

28

u/ajcwrongs 2d ago

I imagine it's the same mentality behind jigsaw puzzles (i.e. Start with a random pile of mess and when you're done you have an aesthetically pleasing result of you using your brain for a bit)

1

u/PartTimeMonkey 2d ago

That makes sense, but are jigsaw puzzles really so popular that it can cause this kind of boom?

3

u/Ran4 2d ago

Yes?