You have apparently been lied to your entire life about loading bars in video games. An indie developer is now revealing what really lies behind them.
The title image is a symbolic image.
Loading screens are present in almost every game. Whether they appear between two levels, when entering a building, or just at the start of the game, everyone should know them.
Yet sometimes the loading screens seem strange. Rarely does anything load at the same speed, and sometimes the loading screen just jumps to the end, and we find ourselves back in the game.
On X.com, several developers exchanged ideas about loading bars in 2023 and revealed that the loading bars, as you know them, are often manipulated.
False Stutters and Jumps
What is “fake” about the bars? The impetus for uncovering the truth about loading bars comes from British comedian Alasdair Beckett-King, who expressed his frustration about irregular loading bars in a post on X.com. He wrote:
Game developers should come up with a loading bar that moves at a uniform speed and shows the actual time a game takes to load. Once that is done, developers can focus on other stuff.
Although many players may have thought something like this before, the news seems to have hit a nerve with developers. Many developers spoke up to share their past experiences regarding loading bars.
Dutch developer Rami Ismail wrote: “I don’t think I’ve ever programmed a correct loading bar.” But developer Raúl Munárriz from Tequila Works studio also admitted to never having worked on a game that didn’t use a false loading bar. He even explains: “Realistic loading bars scare people.”
What’s there to be scared of? British developer Mike Bithell, who worked on “Thomas Was Alone”, explained that players do not trust a “smooth” loading bar. “The stutters and pauses indicate to you that the loading bar is actually working.” However, developers artificially simulate these stutters, even though they are not needed.
Did you know that the loading bars actually don’t need stutters and stumbles, but developers only add this for your feeling? Feel free to write it in the comments. However, developers are also taking legal action against other fakes: A developer is suing Google because the company fails to protect players from scams
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