As games have gotten more sophisticated, in-game environments have swelled to enormous proportions. The world you traverse in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is as big as the footprint of a real city. Consequently, the in-game map is essential to finding your way around. The GTA games are particularly good at conveying a lot of information quickly. In the lower left corner is a top-down road map, with a red waypoint indicating your next mission objective and a gun icon showing where you can buy ordnance.

The increasing girth of game worlds means that it can take 15 minutes to go from end to end. At that point, you're no longer indulging in enjoyable escapism: You're commuting. That's why Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas give players a "Trip Skip" option, and most games have some sort of warp or teleport system. This cliché may seem jarring to nongamers. But like the medikit, the power-up, and the cheat code, warps are goodwill gestures, a way to arm players with the tools they need to minimize frustration and monotony. Why have video game clichés persisted? Because game designers want to make sure that we're having a good time.