Are today's gamers, on average, dumber?
- Thread starter Blackpapa
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Gamers haven't gotten dumber, games have gotten more expensive to make. Dauntingly complex games like those in the OP are made for a niche market that is too small cover the development costs of modern games, and no, i'm not saying strategy games are "not contemporary", starcraft 2 would prove otherwise.
The games in the OP are fucking eyesores filled with meters and stats, starcraft looks nice and has appeal outside of hardcore PC number-crunching fetishists. The reason games like Call Of Duty and Killzone are so popular is because they're streamlined and easy to get into.
If gamers are so dumb, how come cerebral games like brain training and portal 2 have sold so well? Easy: they're accessable. They don't throw labrynthine HUDs at you, they welcome you in and then slowly build up the mental challenge to just the right amount while still being enjoyable.
Another thing, all games require strategy of some sort. Call Of Duty's multiplayer (a game which so many write off as dumb and simple) is basically an RPG in disguise. Between gun selections, perks, equipment, killstreaks and then the thought that goes into using all these as well as you can to level up and unlock even more of these, there's a lot of fucking room for strategy in there.
The games in the OP are fucking eyesores filled with meters and stats, starcraft looks nice and has appeal outside of hardcore PC number-crunching fetishists. The reason games like Call Of Duty and Killzone are so popular is because they're streamlined and easy to get into.
If gamers are so dumb, how come cerebral games like brain training and portal 2 have sold so well? Easy: they're accessable. They don't throw labrynthine HUDs at you, they welcome you in and then slowly build up the mental challenge to just the right amount while still being enjoyable.
Another thing, all games require strategy of some sort. Call Of Duty's multiplayer (a game which so many write off as dumb and simple) is basically an RPG in disguise. Between gun selections, perks, equipment, killstreaks and then the thought that goes into using all these as well as you can to level up and unlock even more of these, there's a lot of fucking room for strategy in there.
Indie games. Look there. There are some great open source games, that are intelligent and complex.
You're implying that just because people aren't good at games they're dumb. You are incorrect in this. You make the same error when you imply that being able to use a computer proficiently is a mark of intellect. Proficiency and intelligence are not equal. I would agree that the playerbase is less technically skilled with computers now, but that doesn't make them dumb.Adzma said:
I have a friend from Romania, he teaches math at the university. Guy couldn't compute his way out of a wet paper bag. The only games I've known him to play were very simple games. He isn't dumb, his talents just lay elsewhere.
Give it another decade or so and we'll have people complaining that games aren't as complex as they were "back in my day" and they'll point to the triple A games of today and say "we should go back to stuff like that" while the newer generation roll their eyes at grandpa and carry on playing their future "dumbed down games"
When those kids grow up they'll do and say the same thing "It was better in my day!" etc. Same as they do with films and music. It's a never ending cycle.
When those kids grow up they'll do and say the same thing "It was better in my day!" etc. Same as they do with films and music. It's a never ending cycle.
The average game may be more simple, and give more hints to the player, but I don't think the average gamer is less intelligent than gamers of old.
If anything, I'd say they have less patience, and that can be seen as lacking intelligence.
Games haven't gotten less complex if that is what you are trying to argue, they've probably gotten much more complex.
The key difference between games of old compared to the new, is the complexity is now niched; FPS more simple, while RPG and RTS more complex. Also throw in the fact that games actually tend to explain what the fuck everything does, and not leave you guessing, and it would be easy to assume that games are much more dumbed down than they used to be. But they're not.
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If anything, I'd say they have less patience, and that can be seen as lacking intelligence.
Games haven't gotten less complex if that is what you are trying to argue, they've probably gotten much more complex.
The key difference between games of old compared to the new, is the complexity is now niched; FPS more simple, while RPG and RTS more complex. Also throw in the fact that games actually tend to explain what the fuck everything does, and not leave you guessing, and it would be easy to assume that games are much more dumbed down than they used to be. But they're not.
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^ This.sravankb said:
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It's not that gamers are getting dumber, but rather, as more of the general population overlaps with the gaming population, dumber people are playing video games. It seems like there're fewer "smart" games out there now, but really there's probably even more, they simply don't get the kind of face time (and don't have decades of small but vocal groups of people singing their praises, by simple virtue of not having been around as long,) as the major players do. The composition has shifted, but that is true of any creative industry as the market value goes up.
That would be like looking at early cinema: Kurosawa, Orsen Welles, French New Wave, and putting it against Michael Bay and saying, "are movie-goers getting dumber?" Which, well, yes, (and as more shitty movies make bank, there's more incentive to make shitty movies, and thus more saturation and conditioning of the public to appreciate that kind of thing,) but the "creative intelligentsia" will always be able to thrive off the leftovers of the larger industrial beast and fantastic and brilliant new material will continually come into light as long as there is variation in the population of the species (finding the best of it though, will always require a conscientious effort on the consumer, and most likely an intentional refining and adjustment of taste. The best works are often quite difficult to digest, and the challenge of doing so is implicit in the reward.)
That would be like looking at early cinema: Kurosawa, Orsen Welles, French New Wave, and putting it against Michael Bay and saying, "are movie-goers getting dumber?" Which, well, yes, (and as more shitty movies make bank, there's more incentive to make shitty movies, and thus more saturation and conditioning of the public to appreciate that kind of thing,) but the "creative intelligentsia" will always be able to thrive off the leftovers of the larger industrial beast and fantastic and brilliant new material will continually come into light as long as there is variation in the population of the species (finding the best of it though, will always require a conscientious effort on the consumer, and most likely an intentional refining and adjustment of taste. The best works are often quite difficult to digest, and the challenge of doing so is implicit in the reward.)
Transport Tycoon Deluxe (second image) is still receiving new content and has an active community under the name OpenTTD.
Am i dumb because i have never played any of these old games? I dont think so.. And your comparison is a load of crap, why did you only mention shooters? There are plenty of more complex games that require thinking, i might as well put a screenshot of civilization and the first super mario, how would that look?
Nice OP there.
"Here's some in-depth strategy games from a few years ago, as compared to some first person shooters from today. Clearly, this selection of games from wildly different genres demonstrates games are dumber"
Post some screens of Doom as compared to Tropico and we'll talk.
"Here's some in-depth strategy games from a few years ago, as compared to some first person shooters from today. Clearly, this selection of games from wildly different genres demonstrates games are dumber"
Post some screens of Doom as compared to Tropico and we'll talk.
Yahtzee said in one of his EP articles that too many people play games these days for that label to be applicable. In a case like this, I agree with him. People play games and most people on this planet are stupid. GAMERS used to be a term for people who spend the majority of their free time playing video games, know everything about video games and follow news about video games. Like everything else in the world, the term "gamer" has changed. So are most gamers nowadays stupid? Not if you apply the old definition of a gamer. Yes, if you apply it to everyone who play video games, because smart people will always be a minority, and because most people have better things to do with their time ("better things" being a relative term for every individual). People like that don't want anything complicated where they have to think. They just want to sit back and relax. Gaming is to them the same as movies, music, sport on TV etc. And these are the people most developers are targeting these days. You can thank this generation of consoles for that.
Well, bullshit. Every game genre has their pros and cons and NONE are dumber than the other.
I've seen live casts of Starcraft II Masters games and, even though I don't play the game myself, I still find it fascinating. The level of complexity involved in playing a good game of SC2 blows my mind with the amount of crap you have to cope with. There's the build orders, there's the knowledge of which units counter what, there's resource management, there's APM, there's getting the attacks in at the exact right moment, there's keeping your macro up, there's keeping your micro up, there's cheeses, counter cheeses and a whole load of other crap that I'm still hearing about.
As for shooters, sure as far as gameplay goes it's pretty much "shoot thing with other thing". But how about Bioshock? Yeah, you're shooting things, but that's not the point, the point is to draw you into the politics behind it and try to get an understanding of the world. Granted you can get through it without knowing these things, but then you'll be missing out on a huge chunk of the experience.
Another genre people have overlooked. Fighting games. Do you have any idea how much skill it takes to play a side-scrolling fighter against another person? There's a hell of a lot of effort required if you want to master Blazblue, Street Fighter or Marvel VS Capcom. You don't just need to be smart to play them well (learning the combos, counters, behaviors of various characters on the roster, exploits, etc.) but you've also got to be able to form a strategy before the fight based on who you're up against (the character and the player, if the online mode gives you their stats or you've met them before) and you also need to be able to form an organic strategy on the fly with incredible speed. Most of the stuff in fighters can be so fast that you practically need to learn this stuff as second nature to remove the thinking time required to implement the strategies required to keep you at an advantage.
Intelligence isn't just about numbers. You could be intelligent in regards to appreciating narrative, sociology and culture, you could be intelligent in regards to being highly skillful or you could have decent spatial awareness.
Sim and RTS players can be intelligent and complete dumbasses (see WCF on LAG TV for the real dumbasses). But they cannot compare to the different kinds of intelligence required to play other genres.
I've seen live casts of Starcraft II Masters games and, even though I don't play the game myself, I still find it fascinating. The level of complexity involved in playing a good game of SC2 blows my mind with the amount of crap you have to cope with. There's the build orders, there's the knowledge of which units counter what, there's resource management, there's APM, there's getting the attacks in at the exact right moment, there's keeping your macro up, there's keeping your micro up, there's cheeses, counter cheeses and a whole load of other crap that I'm still hearing about.
As for shooters, sure as far as gameplay goes it's pretty much "shoot thing with other thing". But how about Bioshock? Yeah, you're shooting things, but that's not the point, the point is to draw you into the politics behind it and try to get an understanding of the world. Granted you can get through it without knowing these things, but then you'll be missing out on a huge chunk of the experience.
Another genre people have overlooked. Fighting games. Do you have any idea how much skill it takes to play a side-scrolling fighter against another person? There's a hell of a lot of effort required if you want to master Blazblue, Street Fighter or Marvel VS Capcom. You don't just need to be smart to play them well (learning the combos, counters, behaviors of various characters on the roster, exploits, etc.) but you've also got to be able to form a strategy before the fight based on who you're up against (the character and the player, if the online mode gives you their stats or you've met them before) and you also need to be able to form an organic strategy on the fly with incredible speed. Most of the stuff in fighters can be so fast that you practically need to learn this stuff as second nature to remove the thinking time required to implement the strategies required to keep you at an advantage.
Intelligence isn't just about numbers. You could be intelligent in regards to appreciating narrative, sociology and culture, you could be intelligent in regards to being highly skillful or you could have decent spatial awareness.
Sim and RTS players can be intelligent and complete dumbasses (see WCF on LAG TV for the real dumbasses). But they cannot compare to the different kinds of intelligence required to play other genres.
honestly games used what they could and they only had so much so they had to fall back on puzzle and logic. now for fall out...its a good story wrapped around a top down shooter. gamers arent dumber they know who has the most money and what sells and the group that has money is the Madden crowd, the one who will buy a game with the same name and not much different. yes i like shooters but i also like rpgs and sidescrollers which while taking skill doesnt require the brain power of braniac
The over-saturation of FPS's doesn't represent dumber gamers, as both FPS's and SIMS require alot of mental input, almost the same. Think about it, unless you're playing easy mode where you just spray and pray (TBF easy mode in SIMS are rather menial and not engaging as well), you always have to think about the descisions you're going to make in a shooter (should I go for strength or speed, do I use a grenade now or wait for others to gather together, do I set up a stronghold here or go for run-and-gun tactics, do I use the last of my ammo and hope they have a good gun or do I wait for a chance to melee/knife them, etc.) FPS' can be just as mentally challanging, it's just a different way of mentally challanging the player.
Further it is important to note that regardless of whether or not gamers value "intelligence" in a game, the one thing that will trump that that gamers value is enjoyment. Is this to say that SIMS can't be enjoyable, of course not, they can be fun, but it is mportant to note that they are called niche titles for a reason, because frankly not everyone wants to sit around waiting for their actions to have consequences.
Further it is important to note that regardless of whether or not gamers value "intelligence" in a game, the one thing that will trump that that gamers value is enjoyment. Is this to say that SIMS can't be enjoyable, of course not, they can be fun, but it is mportant to note that they are called niche titles for a reason, because frankly not everyone wants to sit around waiting for their actions to have consequences.
If anything we are having a little boom of strategy and more tactical games right now, it?s nothing compared the popularity that shooters have at this moment (but then shooters usually do pretty well) but it?s fairly respectable.