Why Have These People Been Playing Cookie Clicker for SEVEN YEARS?

Cookie Clicker is still going strong in 2020. Let's find out why.

Written and presented by Chris Bratt:

Design and art direction by Anni Sayers:

[JelloFluoride]

From my experience, every idle game ends when you ask yourself, "why the fuck am I doing this?"

[ryanclelland]

Cookie clicker gets updated more often then tf2

[CynicSnacks]

YouTube recommendations doing a good job today.

I remember showing Cookie Clicker to my boss back in 2015, he didn't get any work done for days after that.

[thecanadianfood]

Cookie Clicker reminds me of when I was in school and I would take out my calculator and type something like 99 + 99 and then mash the = button and watch as the number goes up and up and up by 99 by every press of the = button.

[pneumaniac]

When I heard that guy say the satisfying part of cookie clicker was optimisation I immediately remembered why I loved the game. It's not about increasing the number, its about accelerating. The same thing is what drives most businessmen, because 100 million cookies may seem inconsequential if you have 10 billion, but if you truly understand the game, that can put you 100x further than you wouldve been otherwise in a months time.

[creepcat]

"If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing."
-Orteil, Developer of Cookie Clicker

[Bradmasta]

My save is so old that it simply says I started "A long while ago" rather than giving a specific amount of days; I believe it was sometime in September of 2013, maybe slightly earlier. I check in on the game from time to time at this point, and if theres a new building or achievement, I'll grind it out for a bit until I get them, or reach a point where it becomes quite slow to progress again. Either way, definitely put in my fair share of time into this, and I suspect I'll be finding myself returning to it until the game no longer is up.

[vizthex]

and the first thing you do each time is to name your bakery "Orteil" to get that sweet shadow achievement.

[JacobGeller]

The video is great and also your production value is always mind-blowing to me. Great work!

[carlangelo]

The reason I particularly like Idle games is that it makes me feel like I'm not wasting time. It makes me feel "productive", I'm working AND playing a game. I love games, when I spend time away from playing games, it makes me feel something similar to FOMO, having an idle game run in the background reduces that feeling and helps me actually work better.

[mattyjones_x]

Just want to shout my appreciation for clean, uncluttered thumbnail pictures. Great stuff !

[timbses]

I like how this went from cookie clicker to existential crisis.

[stevie]

I love the subtle comedy in the script to all Chris' videos. HIs desktop background has me in tears

[QuantumWalnut]

There is actually something a little sinister about the game's underlying mechanics. The fact that we get pleasure out of "anticipation" of reward is absolutely true and some people have exploited it for other purposes, such as implementing it in slot machines in Les Vegas and making people develop gambling addictions, which result in financial ruins and destroy lives.

[Alexandros.Mograine]

I remember back in the day leaving it on with autoclicker while going to school, then coming back and making big bucks.

[JohnFKennedy]

When that professor lady talked about “playing to plan” and “planning your schedule to maximize your experience” or whatever, I immediately thought of clash of clans. I get joy just thinking about when my upgrades will be done and making sure I have enough coin to start the next upgrade right away to maximize efficiency. Funny how that idle type of game is such a banger with society.

[Xx_BoogieBomber_xX]

I started playing this game when it came out and I had a save going up until 2018 when I lost my save switching computers. I mourn that savegame to this day, I was at like septillions of cookies per second.

[antivanti]

"I'm impressed with the dedication of people who have stuck with Cookie Clicker for years" is like saying you're impressed with people who's stayed dedicated to cocaine or heroin for years. The numbers go up and you feel like you accomplished something which triggers the brains reward system which is addictive. Now I need to call my sponsor. Because like some sober alcoholics that keep a bottle hidden just in case I still have my Google Spreadsheets for calculating the best investments of cookies. My name is Anders and it has been 2 years since I last clicked a cookie.
Take the advice of someone who has walked this road before. Don't click that cookie. Not even once.

[chestersnap]

Ok. You can't really cream butter by hand. Creaming is the act of adding air to butter which makes your cookies lighter and fluffier. I prefer chewier cookies so I actually melt my butter first and then mix everything with a fork.

Also, try to weigh everything instead of using measuring cups. Especially the flour and brown sugar because they compact a lot. If you can't do that, spoon the flour out with a separate utensil into the measuring cup and then level it (scooping directly compacts it too much) and for the brown sugar, recipes usually want it as compact as possible. Salted vs unsalted butter can be pretty important, too. Just make sure if using salted butter you use less salt.

Finally, a personal tip: measure your vanilla extract over the bowl and let your pours overflow a bit. I almost always add close to an extra teaspoon of vanilla extract to every thing I bake even though I deliberately bake recipes that tend to be heavy on vanilla. I look up multiple recipes, pick in part based on vanilla amount, and then add more. Vanilla extract is like garlic: you can never have too much

I could probably say a lot more but I'll stop there. I've been figuring out my chocolate chip cookie recipe for the past 10 years. So, yes, I can do better :P

Edit: everything should be room temperature when you're mixing it! Forgot about that for a second

[ChocolateMilkMonster]

I've been playing the game since about 2013-ish. When I started Uni, I restarted my run and I'm currently 1, 697 days into it. I love the game, its just something nice switch tabs to and buy some upgrades, weed the garden and pop my wrigglers. I'm not min maxing the game like a lot of people do I just play it at my own pace and enjoy the events each year.