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, Google Chrome offers a tiny pixel dinosaur to jump over cacti — a game now played about 270 million times a month, most often in places with slow or expensive data. From Namco's 1994 loading-screen Galaxian to the tablet on your restaurant table, we keep learning to fill the wait with play.
Key concepts
- Auxiliary Game
- A small game layered onto a wait, separate from the main task — like a loading-screen minigame; Namco patented the very idea in the 1990s, a sign of how valuable filling a wait can be.
- Occupied Time
- A wait spent doing something feels far shorter than one spent idling — an auxiliary game is occupied time on purpose, making the load disappear from your attention.
- Engagement Versus Distraction
- A game can genuinely improve a wait — or hook you so well you stop minding a delay that should be fixed; the same design that delights can keep you docile.
- Monetizing The Wait
- When your impatience becomes a product — restaurant tablets charge a fee, loading screens show ads, so 'filling the wait' slides from kindness into a revenue stream built on a captive audience.
What to know
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01
Auxiliary games work by occupying time — a wait you're playing through feels shorter even though the load is unchanged, which is why the Chrome Dino thrives exactly where connections are slowest.
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