Spontaneous order is one of those concepts that, once understood, can be found in all areas of life. But just as interesting is witnessing people who have never studied the subject find examples and notice the phenomenon in seemingly obscure areas. I found an example where a video game reviewer and journalist noticed spontaneous order at work in a place. video essay Posted on YouTube. subject? How video games use color to convey ideas. He says at the beginning:
As you can probably tell from my taste in clothes, I don’t place much importance on color. However, I do find it interesting that video games have developed their own color language without any apparent discussion or collusion on the subject. Isn’t it interesting that in the world of live service gear grinding, green means rare, purple means rare, and orange means super rare? Why is this always the case? Who decided that? I don’t remember participating in the vote. But this just scratches the surface. Interface designers have long used certain colors to instantly convey certain concepts to players without the need for additional explanation.
He goes on to list different colors and what they are often used to convey. Part of why this is a good example of spontaneous order can be seen in his comment above. These institutions and practices regarding color took place “without any apparent discussion or collusion on the subject” and without anyone “taking a vote.” In other words, the patterns he identified emerged as a result of human action and were not the result of intentional human design. But there are some other elements of spontaneous order on display here.
First, spontaneous order can appear messy and even contradictory at first glance. For example, regarding how the color green has been used in video games, he notes that what green conveys can be “all over the place.” It is often associated with health and healing in games, but can also be used with the opposite effect to signal poison at the same time. In other cases, it is used to indicate elemental damage, and in some cases, it can refer to “poison, acid, plant, or even wind”-based damage. As someone with years of gaming experience, I can think of all these examples. And it’s interesting that even though green is used to indicate a variety of different and even contradictory things, I was once confused about what green was meant to indicate in a particular context. There was no such thing. I mean, I never came across a green thing in-game thinking it would restore health, but to my surprise it turned out to be poison. This is because color is just one of many ways to convey an idea, and other points in the game’s context can make it more clear what “green” means in a given case. But can you specifically articulate what these other elements are and how they are used in combination to show exactly what green means in this particular case? I doubt whether it is. You can tell just by looking at it. The information used is not the type of information that can be easily articulated and categorized into separate rules.
Second, as rules and conventions emerge through this process, it is important to adhere to them. This is because common knowledge ensures that people know what to expect in their environment. When game developers ignore the established order of what colors convey, they end up confusing gamers. As I watched the video above, the memory power in my brain kicked in and dug up old memories. essay We discussed an example of that exact problem a few years ago. In this case, the problem was red barrels. In any video game with a focus on shooting, if you see a red barrel, there is a 100% chance that shooting that barrel will cause it to explode, dealing massive damage to nearby enemies. (And in video games, the bad guys are usually brave enough to make sure their base of operations is in just the right place.) Messy (These barrels are there because… why?) The trope “red barrels explode” is one of the oldest clichés in video games, and one game developer tried to break away from the cliché by making the exploding barrels green instead of red.
representative of storm of bullets The design team known as Arcade blogged about the process of creating the exploding barrels in the game. They initially wanted to use green barrels to counteract the red stereotype. However, in the heat of the match, they noticed that the players were largely ignoring the barrels. A green flash was seen while driving, but it was not recognized as an “explosive”. In this case, the team correctly decided that getting his instant message across was more important than making a style statement.
This is a trivial but real example of how conventions established by voluntary orders, even if seemingly arbitrary, can still be valuable because they help communicate what is important. It is. information and adjust behavior and establish expectations.
Finally, the set of rules and ideas embedded in a spontaneous order cannot be completely categorized. This comes towards the end of the video when a suggestion is made in the comments section to “Tell me about a video game color association that I missed.” There are plenty of examples in the comments, and I can think of a few more myself. This reflects that attempts to identify the rules that emerge from spontaneous order will always be limited and partial. They are not intentionally designed by the human mind and cannot be completely reduced to a system of rules explicitly and articulated by humans. heart. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s pointless to try to figure out what those rules are. However, it must always be kept in mind that no attempt can completely capture all relevant information.
