Physical Entropy in Computer Games

Digital computers are by design completely deterministic, yet they are often consumers of randomness in cryptography, simulations, science experiments and computer games. To generate randomness in software, programmers implement special mathematical algorithms, which produce a series of numbers that appear nondeterministic, so called pseudo random number generators (PRNGs). Computer games make heavy use of such PRNGs to make game simulations and behaviors of game elements appear more natural. An important design element of many video games is game physics, the simulation of physical reality in video games. Generally overlooked by game developers, is the fact that randomness based on PRNGs are mere simulations themselves and randomness is not treated as a physical property of reality, and thus a form of game physics. Since the dynamics of the very small and the very complex invariably contains randomness, the author suggests this can be used to extend to the scope of game physics by defining two new game physics elements: 1. providing physics based random data to games or interactive media and 2. extracting true randomness from game-player interactions themselves.