Progress Wars: Idle Games and the Demarcation of "Real" Games

This paper examines how idle games, which reduce gameplay to a single repetitive interaction or automate it entirely, have served as a site for negotiating what counts as a "real" game. Drawing on social constructivist views of games as a social construct, and on theoretical frameworks of game aesthetics and boundary work, the author argues that the category of "real" games is actively produced through the contested practices of designers, players, and critics rather than being a natural given.

The analysis traces the genre's trajectory from its origins as parody. Early titles such as Progress Quest (2002), StatBuilder Classic (2008), Progress Wars (2010), and Godville (2010) used a reductio ad absurdum of grinding progress mechanics drawn from role-playing games to argue that such mechanics involved no genuine skill and therefore did not constitute real play. A pivotal moment came with Ian Bogost's Cow Clicker (2006), a satire that unexpectedly achieved massive popularity, revealing an appeal, a kind of absorptive "being in the zone" experience, that its critical intent had not anticipated.

The paper's central finding is that this boundary work produced an outcome opposite to its intent. Artistic experiments like Cookie Clicker (2013) and Candy Box (2013) built on the rediscovered appeal, which subsequently fed a wave of polished, freemium-monetized idle games such as Clicker Heroes (2014) and AdVenture Capitalist (2015). Rather than delimiting the category of real games, the sub-genre expanded it and normalized the practice. The author concludes that boundary-drawing is always value-laden and that the agency of the actors involved is subject to unintended consequences.