Video Games' Loading Screens Are Mostly Fake, According to Developers

Over the past few days, multiple Indie Game Developers took to Twitter to confirm one of the gaming industry's longest-standing theories, revealing that most loading bars and loading screens in video games are fake and don't convey any useful information.

Responding to Alasdair Beckett-King's joking tweet, which suggested that prior to working on a game's controls and graphics, developers should focus on "a loading bar that moves at an even speed", developers from various studios stated that the erratic nature of loading screens is, in fact, intentional, noting that most gamers wouldn't actually want those bars to represent reality.

Game Developer Mike Bithell, for example, commented that gamers usually "don't trust a smooth loading bar", prompting developers to artificially fake it by adding stutters and pauses:

Raúl Rubio Munárriz added that real loading screens "induce anxiety", noting that he's "never worked in a game that didn't sport a fake loading bar":

Seb Downie-Blackwell even stated that "there is zero technical reason to have [loading screens] since the PS3, but focus tests showed that players couldn't deal without them":

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