Games to Pass the Wait

In 1994, the developers of Namco’s Ridge Racer added an Easter egg to their loading screens—a version of the studio’s classic Galaxian game. Google Chrome does something similar: its Dinosaur Game appears when your device goes offline temporarily. In the real world, some restaurants now encourage diners to play games on table-mounted payment terminals (for a fee) while waiting for their food. Discuss with your team: should more processes come with these kinds of “auxiliary games” to help people pass the time?

When your internet drops, Chrome offers a pixel dinosaur — played 270 million times a month, mostly where data is slow. We keep filling the wait with play.

Key concepts

Engagement Versus Distraction: A game can genuinely improve a wait — or work so well that you stop minding a delay that ought to be fixed. The same design that delights you can also keep you docile, content to sit through a slowness someone should have removed.

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Every work — at a glance

Chrome Dinosaur Game (video game)

The offline dinosaur that appears when Chrome loses its connection — jump the cacti, dodge the birds. Played hundreds of millions of times a month, it thrives exactly where connections are worst, turning the hated 'no internet' moment into a game.

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What to know

01
Should more processes come with these 'auxiliary games'? They work by occupying time — a wait you are playing through feels shorter even though the load is unchanged, which is why the Chrome dinosaur thrives where connections are slowest. But the same trick that delights when it is free becomes predatory when it is metered: a restaurant tablet that bills a child to pass the time is filling the wait and exploiting it in one motion, so 'more games' is the right answer only where nobody is being charged for their own impatience.

Across subjects

Rome ran this playbook. The poet Juvenal sneered that the public had traded its freedom for 'bread and circuses' — after emperors learned that free grain and

Theme connection

"Are We There Yet?"

The auxiliary game makes the wait fun, not shorter — brightest where connections are worst. Should more processes come with games? One side says yes: a kindness that costs nothing. The other points at the restaurant tablet — filling the wait becomes billing for it, and a fun distraction can excuse a delay that should be fixed.

Practice — a sample

SPCA loading-screen minigame like the Chrome dinosaur mainly serves to —

A Speed the download
B Teach the user coding
C Occupy empty waiting
D Cut server costs
E Test the graphics

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