Devs Admit Loading Bars in Games are Mostly a Lie
Mind you, this knowledge may change your previous perception of video games. For it turns out that all our lives we have been lied to about loading bars.
There comes a point in everyone's life when we have to come to terms with the fact that certain things we believed in when we were children simply do not exist. The Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus - these are just some of the sweet lies we were fed in our youth. Now the loading bar in video games has joined that list.
And although super-fast SSDs are causing us to see this element for less and less time, many of us remember that characteristic phenomenon of loading bar animation. It was this aspect that became the subject of a discussion that arose on Twitter.
The impulse for the debate turned out to be a post by British comedian Alasdair Beckett-King, in which the artist complains about the lack of smoothness of loading bars in games.
As I mentioned, Beckett-King's message resonated with the industry and prompted game developers to make a shocking confession. Well the familiar jumps during loading are deliberately programmed, because, the developers argue, such effects reassure us that the bar actually works.
"... Funny thing: gamers don't trust the smooth loading bar. Jams and pauses show that loading is progressing. I have worked on games in which we pretended this," reads the content of a post by Mike Bithell, creator of Thomas Was Alone.
In turn, Raúl Rubio Munárriz of Tequila Works (Gylt, Deadlight) wrote: "I've never worked on a game that didn't have a fake loading bar. The real ones cause anxiety."
Also joining the discussion was the developer of Nuclear Throne, Rami Ismail, who revealed that he had worked "on projects where loading bars were faked, animation times were extended or they were made to move at uneven speeds." Finally, he added that it had never yet happened to him to program a properly working loading bar.
We have to admit that such declarations from the developers can shed new light on our gaming experience. And do you pay attention to the issue of game loading bars?
