Controller Evolution

[irani_che]

On controllers,
I find I can give anyone, be it a Xbox Halo fanatic or a PS3 COD guy my little sister who plays Wii or even my mum who doesnt play computer games but just about knows how to use a computer, a simple FPS like portal or minecraft or COD on a computer and they pick it up really quickly.
A mouse is very intuitive and effective. I would say computer games are the easiest gateway for bringing causal gamers into "mainstream" gaming

 

[WanderingFool]

and God forbid the Tutorial isn't 100% skippable or "hardcore" gamers are garaunteed to pitch a fit about it - as though it's inconcievable that people without their specific prior experience might want to play, too

What? You make it sound like there's something wrong with wanting a skip button, Bob. I have to disagree strongly: a skip button is what makes everyone happy.

If the tutorial is mandatory for everyone each time you start a new game, people who already know what they are doing are going to find it annoying.
If the tutorial doesn't exist, no players are going to get frustrated and turn the game off.
If the tutorial is there, but you can choose to skip it, experienced players can skip the tutorial and just play, while new players can take the extra time to pick up the basics.

With a skip button, everyone is happy. Every game tutorial should be skippable. It's just something that should be in every game these days, like an option for subtitles, and an in-game brightness adjuster so we don't have to change our TV's or monitor's settings if one game decides to be too dark or too bright by default.

I agree with this. As much as I find tutorials useful when new to a game, after playing though it the first time, if I go for a second run, I dont want to go through the learning session again. There should almost always be a skip feature; unless the tutorial is done in such a way that its necessary, but it doesnt feel like you are being literally "taught" things. Something like a first level that has prompts pop up telling you how to perform a certain action, but feeling like it is being said in context, and not rookie training. I would say something like the first level to MW2, in the first part where you are showing the new recruits how it is done. That feels to me like a well done tutorial. Actually, look up the Extra Credit episode about tutorials, they basically say that themselves, if I remember correctly.

 

[KEM10]

Spoiler: snip

I've been enjoying the discussion, both in the article and on the forum, so much so that it's got to the point where I joined just to join in. So congrats all round To begin with, I think it's necessary to state a point everyone knows but no-one (I think) has really mentioned.

The universal controllers we use are a necessary compromise. In an ideal world, every game would have a controller suited specifically for playing it, and learning how to use these controls would be the best way to play the game. But games would then be very expensive to buy, and to a lesser extent, to manufacture. BTW this doesn't preclude that similar games would have vastly different controllers - after all, if two games are similar then undoubtedly they will have similar control schemes. But yeah, the controllers we use on consoles are an economic compromise - having one controller with multiple different buttons allows for a great diversity of actions to be done by the player without them having to create stacks of very specific controllers. That's why the keyboard and the PS3/360 controllers (the two are essentially the same) are built the way they are.

A lot of people seem to believe that this means they are optimal in some way, however. For those who are used to these schemes - yes, they very well may be optimal as they are suitable. Such people have a wealth of previous experience with these controllers, or previous and slightly less complicated incarnations. Let's think of current generation FPS's. I know that to aim on a PS3 controller is to press R1 then move the right analog stick. This simulates me looking down my sights then looking around through them. Now step out of your gaming bubble. Is this really the optimal way to *aim*? What about the light-gun way - you have a tactile gun controller with its own sights down which you can aim? I know this isn't perfect, as it requires calibration, but surely this a better way to *aim* a gun in an FPS. But you wouldn't use a light-gun in something like CoD, as light-guns have a very limited (and so far shit) capacity for moving the player around. To my mind, an ideal controller for an FPS would be one that would allow you to aim down-sight whilst retaining all the movement capabilities currently available. That would be a far more 'optimal' way to play these games.

What is the point of a controller? It's to allow the player to immerse themselves in the game, to go from cognitive thought to visible action with as little thought about how they are doing this as possible. On a micro level, a controller is 'optimal' if you can do this - hence I'd argue that, for me, a PS3 controller is optimal. On a macro level, a controller is 'optimal' if ANYONE who plays a game can do this - hence the reasoning behind the lightgun/FPS mash-up above.

This brings me to Yahtzee's point - "It's just I've never seen anyone get as lost in Wii Tennis for hours like I do in, say, Silent Hill 2". I'd argue that has little to do with the controller. Silent Hill 2 is a game built to be played over hours and hours and hours (or maybe just hours and hours, or even only hours). SH2 is made to be played immersively over a long period of time - it wouldn't work as a horror game otherwise. As for Wii Tennis - it's designed to be played in smaller, more discrete chunks. It's immersive for as long as a match lasts - events don't tie you from one match to another. You finish a game, then start a new one. No wonder no-one doesn't get lost in it for as many hours as they do in SH2.

So Yahtzee - the controllers have nothing to do with the duration of immersion, it's more the games they're played with. What about another important factor, the intensity of immersion? How 'immersed' in the game are players? Although that's difficult to gauge, I'd argue they are equally immersive experiences for me (hence on a micro, personal level) though on a macro level, I'd say Wii Tennis is, as more people can become immersed in this easier than SH2 precisely because of the controllers - swinging a Wiimote to mimic a tennis swing has more fidelity to the real-life experience than pressing X, an action not requiring you to move your legs, to run - and that's why Wii Tennis is arguably more immersive as far as controllers are concerned (NOTE: I'm not saying it's a more immersive game overall).

Going along these lines, there seems to be an idea that motion controls are rubbish and will always be rubbish. Games made for them tend to be simplistic, or not make great use of their controls, or when they try to be complex they are miserable experiences.

Well, duh. Try playing CoD on a NES controller. See how much fun that is.

Numerous contributors have mentioned that us growing up, and controller's evolving with new consoles, has gone hand-in-hand. That's a very valid point. I'd like to take this argument further though, as I alluded to with the above sentence.

Veteran gamers love to wear rose-tinted glasses. I know, I'm one of them. But think back to the NES, one of the earliest precursors to today's controllers - how many playing buttons did it have? 2. 6 if you count the D-Pad. How many did the Mega Drive have? 6 (10 with D-Pad). And so on. Games for these machines had to be relatively simplistic, as there were only so many combinations of button you could press - there were only so many inputs. Now? The PS3 has 12 buttons (including the D-Pad), and at least 360 degrees of rotation (or button presses) per stick. The amount of commands available to a PS3 controller compared to a MegaDrive controller is probably a billion times more (don't make me do the maths).

Why am I telling you this? Because the Wii controller is comparable to the NES - it's the first generation, the most simplistic, the most basic. Games with it are simplistic. The Move and the Kinect are MegaDrive/SNES equivalents.

I can gaurantee you, the PS3 equivalent will allow for games equally complex and deep and immersive and impressive as PS3/360 games. But you'll have to wait 20 years to see them. But it's short-sighted to write them off because their NES equivalent produces mostly rubbish games (and I'd argue they're rubbish because we've been spoilt by the PS3s/360s/PC games, and not as stand-alone).

Phew. Sorry that took so long. A thumbs-up if you stayed to the end :-D

I saved the entire post in spoilers (I think more people should do that instead of just cutting and replacing with a snip).

Two things. First, I think that is the most information anyone has ever put down in a first post. Second, I have to agree with the idea that the current motion controls are first gen and have room to grow, but you can't completely isolate them just because of that. Quick example: everyone goes nuts about the next WoW killer, it is the game to beat when it comes to MMOs. Problem is, when a new game enters the market that is good on its own merits but not quite as good as WoW, it is seen as inferior and left to die even if it could be better than WoW if given an extra year or two of development with a mediocre fanbase. We have to compare this first gen motion controller to the current gen of "regular" consoles because that is what they are against.

Ideally, I hope there is a happy medium between motion and analog controllers where everyone can get along. I would be hard pressed to play a platformer or an epic RPG with motion controls. However, I do think FPS games with a "Wii-mote" and analog for walking are going to be the next big thing (once we work out the kinks).

 

[Deacon Cole]

Allow me to hijack the plane a moment.

...and hardcores will benefit from developers being less able to re-press the same game as a "sequel" when the last one is sitting right there online.

Bob, each time you play a game of, say, Chess, is that a sequel? The rules are the same each time. Why then do many play Chess regularly without complaint that it's just the same game every time? True, you don't have to buy the game each time you play unless the pieces are made of chocolate (there's an idea!) But I am curious what is at work here.

Part of it seems to be how closely video games are emulating movies and sequelists is the bane of the movie industry as well.

Personally, I detest storytelling in video games for this very reason. I had made a post on another forum that I'll spoil here.

Spoiler

So, I've continued to toy with the idea of pre-purchasing Minecraft. I know, I'm indecisive. And also broke. But I have been watching various videos some have made and I've come to the conclusion that Minecraft may be the best RPG ever made despite and probably because it lack two elements common to most RPGs: character stats and story.

There is nothing wrong with character stats per se. They are a tool and tools can be used well or poorly. However, they had long since lost their luster for me even back when I was dealing with paper and dice RPGs. In video games they become a thing unto themselves.

In Runescape I and many others have and continue to spend hours chopping down trees and then burning the wood collected. Why? To raise the woodcutting and fire building skills. Why? To get the skill levels as high as possible. This is not a phenomenon limited to Runescape or even MMO's. Level grinding is so common, it's taken as read by most players and some games are designed with level grinding in mind. I've ramble on about how I like how Bioshock lacked character stats instead having the player acquire plasmids and tonics that for the most part added abilities rather than improving existing ones. Similarly, Legend of Zelda mostly added abilities in the items/tools collected. Minecraft is the same in that the miner crafts tools from raw materials to accomplish tasks. On a side note, Minecraft may be one of the few games where item degradation makes sense.

Minecraft also has just as much grind as any other game, if not more but the rewards and methods are more directly linked. The basic method is exploration either by trudging around the surface or digging a really big hole. In either case you're looking for resources so you can build the things you want which could be and eighty foot nude statue of Sarah Palin or just finding more diamond so you can replace all the diamond tools you had to wear out to find more diamond. You never just stay in one place and slaughter infinitely respawning enemies. No, you must work for a living. Digging through solid rock, encountering and exploring cave systems, hoping that clearing through that next layer of rock will expose the ore you need. So the grind is in actually playing the game rather than stopping to raise your numbers high enough so you can get back to playing the game.

Story in games is a big, big topic and an ongoing debate. But I'm of the mind that what is called storytelling in many games is actually story from another medium that is tacked onto a game. That's what cutscenes are. That's what Bioshock's audio diaries are. An add on but not the actual story of the game you're playing. Not to mention most of them are either cliched or batshit insane like the final fantasy series. I think the dark lord is a fantasy cliche that should be retired forever.

Minecraft has no story or context. Your character merely pops into existence on a beach somewhere and leaves it up to the player's imagination to fill in the blanks if at all and is all the stronger for it. This means the only story going on here is in the actual text of gameplay. A story is an artwork fashioned from the events of live and here you fashion whatever story you get from what you actually do. This means it'll be a story about digging a hole, breaking into a cave system, hearing a giant spider somewhere in the dark, gacking said spider, finding a diamond deposit near a lava flow, mining the diamond and then falling into the lava and losing all your items including the diamond you'd just acquired.

Not much of a story, perhaps. Maybe not worth retelling to others. But from a play experience, it's a much better story than any of the other twaddle on the market. It's a story about what you did. What obstacles you encountered. How you figured out a way to overcome them. And how you either succeeded or failed.

This is what storytelling in games should be. This is why Minecraft is the best RPG ever made.

Condensed version: Minecraft has the potential and probably currently is the best RPG on the market because it lack story and character stats which ties the story, as it what happens not to an abstract spreadsheet of numbers or some writer's pathetic attempt at aping Tolkien for the forty berillionth time, but on what actions the player takes. That is, the environment presents the player with a situation, the player takes and action, the environment reacts, the player takes further action, repeat until the situation is resolved. This is how storytelling actually works. It's not watching cutscenes.

It seems that most developers, especially the triple A sort, are coming up with a gameplay 'engine' that acts as a kind of laws of physics that they can then reskin with a new cast of characters, setting, etc. and expect it to not get stale.

But it does get stale and worse, storytelling in games tend to make the player's actions redundant and unnecessary. Being sent on some quest to save the world or bring in the mail is fairly meaningless when you realize that any other berk could have done it.

This is a big topic and I'm starting to ramble now, so I'll cut this short.

 

[alphaxion]

On controllers,
I find I can give anyone, be it a Xbox Halo fanatic or a PS3 COD guy my little sister who plays Wii or even my mum who doesnt play computer games but just about knows how to use a computer, a simple FPS like portal or minecraft or COD on a computer and they pick it up really quickly.
A mouse is very intuitive and effective. I would say computer games are the easiest gateway for bringing causal gamers into "mainstream" gaming

PC gaming is already the biggest gateway for bringing casual gamers into mainstream (tho the iphone is proving effective too) - just think how many people play games on the websites of Armor Games or PopCap. Then look at how many go on to buy a DS... then a Wii or a 360.

However, there is a massive way of bringing casuals into the wider gaming ecosystem - we gamers. How greater will the pull be if we took the time to invite our less gaming focused work collegues round for a gaming session or ask our parents to join in? You don't have to drop them straight into an FPS deathmatch, start them off with simpler games or even co-op missions.

If there's a human there to take the journey with them instead of just a cold, faceless tutorial then it's likely they'll be open to playing more.

 

[Captain Underbeard]

Spoiler: snip

I've been enjoying the discussion, both in the article and on the forum, so much so that it's got to the point where I joined just to join in. So congrats all round To begin with, I think it's necessary to state a point everyone knows but no-one (I think) has really mentioned.

The universal controllers we use are a necessary compromise. In an ideal world, every game would have a controller suited specifically for playing it, and learning how to use these controls would be the best way to play the game. But games would then be very expensive to buy, and to a lesser extent, to manufacture. BTW this doesn't preclude that similar games would have vastly different controllers - after all, if two games are similar then undoubtedly they will have similar control schemes. But yeah, the controllers we use on consoles are an economic compromise - having one controller with multiple different buttons allows for a great diversity of actions to be done by the player without them having to create stacks of very specific controllers. That's why the keyboard and the PS3/360 controllers (the two are essentially the same) are built the way they are.

A lot of people seem to believe that this means they are optimal in some way, however. For those who are used to these schemes - yes, they very well may be optimal as they are suitable. Such people have a wealth of previous experience with these controllers, or previous and slightly less complicated incarnations. Let's think of current generation FPS's. I know that to aim on a PS3 controller is to press R1 then move the right analog stick. This simulates me looking down my sights then looking around through them. Now step out of your gaming bubble. Is this really the optimal way to *aim*? What about the light-gun way - you have a tactile gun controller with its own sights down which you can aim? I know this isn't perfect, as it requires calibration, but surely this a better way to *aim* a gun in an FPS. But you wouldn't use a light-gun in something like CoD, as light-guns have a very limited (and so far shit) capacity for moving the player around. To my mind, an ideal controller for an FPS would be one that would allow you to aim down-sight whilst retaining all the movement capabilities currently available. That would be a far more 'optimal' way to play these games.

What is the point of a controller? It's to allow the player to immerse themselves in the game, to go from cognitive thought to visible action with as little thought about how they are doing this as possible. On a micro level, a controller is 'optimal' if you can do this - hence I'd argue that, for me, a PS3 controller is optimal. On a macro level, a controller is 'optimal' if ANYONE who plays a game can do this - hence the reasoning behind the lightgun/FPS mash-up above.

This brings me to Yahtzee's point - "It's just I've never seen anyone get as lost in Wii Tennis for hours like I do in, say, Silent Hill 2". I'd argue that has little to do with the controller. Silent Hill 2 is a game built to be played over hours and hours and hours (or maybe just hours and hours, or even only hours). SH2 is made to be played immersively over a long period of time - it wouldn't work as a horror game otherwise. As for Wii Tennis - it's designed to be played in smaller, more discrete chunks. It's immersive for as long as a match lasts - events don't tie you from one match to another. You finish a game, then start a new one. No wonder no-one doesn't get lost in it for as many hours as they do in SH2.

So Yahtzee - the controllers have nothing to do with the duration of immersion, it's more the games they're played with. What about another important factor, the intensity of immersion? How 'immersed' in the game are players? Although that's difficult to gauge, I'd argue they are equally immersive experiences for me (hence on a micro, personal level) though on a macro level, I'd say Wii Tennis is, as more people can become immersed in this easier than SH2 precisely because of the controllers - swinging a Wiimote to mimic a tennis swing has more fidelity to the real-life experience than pressing X, an action not requiring you to move your legs, to run - and that's why Wii Tennis is arguably more immersive as far as controllers are concerned (NOTE: I'm not saying it's a more immersive game overall).

Going along these lines, there seems to be an idea that motion controls are rubbish and will always be rubbish. Games made for them tend to be simplistic, or not make great use of their controls, or when they try to be complex they are miserable experiences.

Well, duh. Try playing CoD on a NES controller. See how much fun that is.

Numerous contributors have mentioned that us growing up, and controller's evolving with new consoles, has gone hand-in-hand. That's a very valid point. I'd like to take this argument further though, as I alluded to with the above sentence.

Veteran gamers love to wear rose-tinted glasses. I know, I'm one of them. But think back to the NES, one of the earliest precursors to today's controllers - how many playing buttons did it have? 2. 6 if you count the D-Pad. How many did the Mega Drive have? 6 (10 with D-Pad). And so on. Games for these machines had to be relatively simplistic, as there were only so many combinations of button you could press - there were only so many inputs. Now? The PS3 has 12 buttons (including the D-Pad), and at least 360 degrees of rotation (or button presses) per stick. The amount of commands available to a PS3 controller compared to a MegaDrive controller is probably a billion times more (don't make me do the maths).

Why am I telling you this? Because the Wii controller is comparable to the NES - it's the first generation, the most simplistic, the most basic. Games with it are simplistic. The Move and the Kinect are MegaDrive/SNES equivalents.

I can gaurantee you, the PS3 equivalent will allow for games equally complex and deep and immersive and impressive as PS3/360 games. But you'll have to wait 20 years to see them. But it's short-sighted to write them off because their NES equivalent produces mostly rubbish games (and I'd argue they're rubbish because we've been spoilt by the PS3s/360s/PC games, and not as stand-alone).

Phew. Sorry that took so long. A thumbs-up if you stayed to the end :-D

I saved the entire post in spoilers (I think more people should do that instead of just cutting and replacing with a snip).

Two things. First, I think that is the most information anyone has ever put down in a first post. Second, I have to agree with the idea that the current motion controls are first gen and have room to grow, but you can't completely isolate them just because of that. Quick example: everyone goes nuts about the next WoW killer, it is the game to beat when it comes to MMOs. Problem is, when a new game enters the market that is good on its own merits but not quite as good as WoW, it is seen as inferior and left to die even if it could be better than WoW if given an extra year or two of development with a mediocre fanbase. We have to compare this first gen motion controller to the current gen of "regular" consoles because that is what they are against.

Ideally, I hope there is a happy medium between motion and analog controllers where everyone can get along. I would be hard pressed to play a platformer or an epic RPG with motion controls. However, I do think FPS games with a "Wii-mote" and analog for walking are going to be the next big thing (once we work out the kinks).

Yeah I agree - there have been plenty of other 'universal' controllers which have been made and died a death in their first generation. Usually the reason for this is because they're pretty poor though, and weren't suited for use as 'universal' controllers for that console. It can happen with good ones too, but it won't happen with the generation started by the Wii.

That control system is already established and in its second generation. It's proven to be wildly popular, and we will see more of it and not less in the coming years.

A controller has to be suited to the game-playing experience, and you have to ask what is the crux of that experience. I think the experience of a game can be broken down into levels of physicality and meta-physicality.

What do I mean? A dancing game is a highly physical experience - you're using your body to play the game. An RPG is a highly metaphysical experience - there are elements such as growth and relationship building (among others, naturally). I'd argue that metaphysical experiences can never have suitable controllers, for they aren't things we can touch. They have to be conceptualised into something that can be touched, like buttons on a keypad.

To review - as far as I see, optimal controls can be made for physical experiences, and it's quite obvious what they are. As for metaphysical experiences, the optimal controls are a lot more open to interpretation. So I'd say there are at least two paths of evolution of game controllers - the one with current PS3/360 consoles that are good at bringing about the metaphysical, and the Wii which can bring about the physical.

 

[viking97]

oh christ, james agrees with BOTH of them

 

[Rafe]

These are fantastic, great point from all. I hope to see this series continuing for a long time.

 

[Siberian Relic]

Don't know about you guys, but I can see this becoming the Top Gear of the Escapist.

 

[irani_che]

Don't know about you guys, but I can see this becoming the Top Gear of the Escapist.

Yahtzee always was the gamer Jeremy clackson

 

[irani_che]

On controllers,
I find I can give anyone, be it a Xbox Halo fanatic or a PS3 COD guy my little sister who plays Wii or even my mum who doesnt play computer games but just about knows how to use a computer, a simple FPS like portal or minecraft or COD on a computer and they pick it up really quickly.
A mouse is very intuitive and effective. I would say computer games are the easiest gateway for bringing causal gamers into "mainstream" gaming

PC gaming is already the biggest gateway for bringing casual gamers into mainstream (tho the iphone is proving effective too) - just think how many people play games on the websites of Armor Games or PopCap. Then look at how many go on to buy a DS... then a Wii or a 360.

However, there is a massive way of bringing casuals into the wider gaming ecosystem - we gamers. How greater will the pull be if we took the time to invite our less gaming focused work collegues round for a gaming session or ask our parents to join in? You don't have to drop them straight into an FPS deathmatch, start them off with simpler games or even co-op missions.

If there's a human there to take the journey with them instead of just a cold, faceless tutorial then it's likely they'll be open to playing more.

agreed, I got into halo because of a co op.
reason i like PCs is that many ppl already have a PC at home which is capable of playing games

 

[onyx452]

A big issue with the back catalog idea is licensing problems. I read an article once (I'm pretty sure it was here too) that the reason Sony hasn't just released all of their back catalog is because over time licensing changes hands, different people are in charge. They may want to do it but their hands are quite literally tied. But I have to agree with regular controllers over motion. I want to just sit back, relax, and zonk out when I play.

 

[Robyrt]

The alienation caused by the Xbox/PS3 controller cannot be overstated. I put my father (who will try anything once) in front of Flower, one of the most accessible video games of this generation, and he immediately got lost... because he put the controller down on the couch while watching the opening cut scene, then picked it back up with one hand, causing the camera to go nuts.

The modern console controller is built for FPS games. The PC controller is built for Microsoft Word. Beyond that, the learning curve only gets steeper, and there's not much you can do about it except make better tutorials. The best tutorials in the business are, not coincidentally, on the most popular games.

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

I love how it feels like I just read a discussion between a suave-looking 1950s deco art man, a little trilby-wearing bug eyed avatar with free floating ball hands and a long-haired bearded game guru cartoon.

 

[walsfeo]

The whole question about motion controllers is about saturation and exposure. The longer they are around the more kids will have grown up with them and expect them, kinda like vibrating controllers. Also, the longer they around the more developers will be able to develop classifications of games that utilize them to their fullest.

Why can't a console controller with motion control just use some elements as an "extra button" instead of being a full motion control experience. The example is best suited for survival horror - something jumps at me and I leap in start so it cause my avatar in the game to jump about. Other than that I still use standard controller configurations.

I'd still really like a 2 part 360 controller so I could move my hands about separately instead of keeping them held in front of me.

you guys should consider doing a podcast I think =)

Considering Yahtzee lives in Australia, and the other two presumably live in different parts of America, I suspect this would be one heck of a headache to do... :/

I host a board game related podcast, and our hosts are scattered around the USA. One of our contributors is from Australia, and we recorded a few segments together - with SKYPE it wasn't that difficult. They could easily have had this conversation in 15 minutes or less, including connection time.

 

[Ed.]

Oh dear...

Console gamers already see PC games being brought over to their platform being 'dumbed down' because of the constraints of the controllers. If the industry tries to cater to the novice to expand the market, won't they be simplifying the controllers even further if the current ones appear 'daunting' to a rookie?

I think what they were going for was more games that are simplified and just not using the whole controller for the sake of using the whole controller. I think a Prince of Persia game where all it is would be patforming: analog for moving, analog for camera, button to jump, trigger to go back in time. More games that don't feel obligated to use all 10 buttons, dual axis, and d pad. Besides, I doubt the computer gamers that issue that complaint on a regular basis would pick up said game...then again, Super Meatboy sold really well.

Keyboard and mouse inherently addresses this. No dev uses all the buttons that would be utterly insane so they just use what they need.

Another thing PC gaming has that almost all consoles lack total customization on pc you can map any button to any action. aditionaly you can plug in some other input device and map actions to that.

A good example from the FPS is mouse button 4 on mice that support it there is no consensus on what it should do same with eh Q key i use them as reload and mele respectively but because of the customisation everyone is happy.

Best thing for consoles would be to support a decent wireless keyboard and mouse or keyboard and pointer.

 

[KEM10]

Oh dear...

Console gamers already see PC games being brought over to their platform being 'dumbed down' because of the constraints of the controllers. If the industry tries to cater to the novice to expand the market, won't they be simplifying the controllers even further if the current ones appear 'daunting' to a rookie?

I think what they were going for was more games that are simplified and just not using the whole controller for the sake of using the whole controller. I think a Prince of Persia game where all it is would be patforming: analog for moving, analog for camera, button to jump, trigger to go back in time. More games that don't feel obligated to use all 10 buttons, dual axis, and d pad. Besides, I doubt the computer gamers that issue that complaint on a regular basis would pick up said game...then again, Super Meatboy sold really well.

Keyboard and mouse inherently addresses this. No dev uses all the buttons that would be utterly insane so they just use what they need.

Another thing PC gaming has that almost all consoles lack total customization on pc you can map any button to any action. aditionaly you can plug in some other input device and map actions to that.

A good example from the FPS is mouse button 4 on mice that support it there is no consensus on what it should do same with eh Q key i use them as reload and mele respectively but because of the customisation everyone is happy.

Best thing for consoles would be to support a decent wireless keyboard and mouse or keyboard and pointer.

That's a horrible analogy. I'm talking about how games are getting too complex and have a high barrier to entry because of it and you talk about the 4 button on a mouse. Modern FPS games have a ton of buttons(walk, shoot, alternate fire, crouch, sprint, frag, sidearm, jump, check leader board, and possibly others), if you wanted to use that as an idea then you should have brought up Portal because of its minimalistic controls (toggle portals, shoot, grab, walk). I am talking about taking a step back and making simpler games so you can bring people into them easily. The Price of Persia game I mentioned was for the Wii and came out the same time as Mirror's Edge and did platforming better because it wasn't attempting to mess with the parkour stunts. It also didn't punish the players as much for slight errors, basically you went back to right before you made the last jump and got to try it again right away instead of running through a good chunk of the level again and again.

The idea is to get more people to play games, not scare them with controls.

 

[Ed.]

Oh dear...

Console gamers already see PC games being brought over to their platform being 'dumbed down' because of the constraints of the controllers. If the industry tries to cater to the novice to expand the market, won't they be simplifying the controllers even further if the current ones appear 'daunting' to a rookie?

I think what they were going for was more games that are simplified and just not using the whole controller for the sake of using the whole controller. I think a Prince of Persia game where all it is would be patforming: analog for moving, analog for camera, button to jump, trigger to go back in time. More games that don't feel obligated to use all 10 buttons, dual axis, and d pad. Besides, I doubt the computer gamers that issue that complaint on a regular basis would pick up said game...then again, Super Meatboy sold really well.

Keyboard and mouse inherently addresses this. No dev uses all the buttons that would be utterly insane so they just use what they need.

Another thing PC gaming has that almost all consoles lack total customization on pc you can map any button to any action. aditionaly you can plug in some other input device and map actions to that.

A good example from the FPS is mouse button 4 on mice that support it there is no consensus on what it should do same with eh Q key i use them as reload and mele respectively but because of the customisation everyone is happy.

Best thing for consoles would be to support a decent wireless keyboard and mouse or keyboard and pointer.

That's a horrible analogy. I'm talking about how games are getting too complex and have a high barrier to entry because of it and you talk about the 4 button on a mouse. Modern FPS games have a ton of buttons(walk, shoot, alternate fire, crouch, sprint, frag, sidearm, jump, check leader board, and possibly others), if you wanted to use that as an idea then you should have brought up Portal because of its minimalistic controls (toggle portals, shoot, grab, walk). I am talking about taking a step back and making simpler games so you can bring people into them easily. The Price of Persia game I mentioned was for the Wii and came out the same time as Mirror's Edge and did platforming better because it wasn't attempting to mess with the parkour stunts. It also didn't punish the players as much for slight errors, basically you went back to right before you made the last jump and got to try it again right away instead of running through a good chunk of the level again and again.

The idea is to get more people to play games, not scare them with controls.

The point of mouse and keyboard its totally flexible and scalable much more so than a console controler as everyone has used a keyboard.

simpler still than portal are the browser games those run on K+M.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

There is a severe learning curve on both ends of gaming. Novice gamers have trouble with the complex button scheme on modern controllers but seem to get the motion controls much easier. My parents for example, bought a 360/Kinect bundle for Christmas and have been playing the crap out of the shovelware Kinect games while the Black Ops copy is gathering dust because its "confusing".
However, as a game enthusiast, I owned a Wii for several months before lightning killed it and a number of other things in my home (even surge protectors don't do much to a direct strike), and my experience with the Wii was ultimately frustrating and annoying, so much so that I bought myself a classic controller, after that I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Same with Kinect, I don't find myself intuitively picking up on the motion controls.
Another example is Guitar Hero/Rock Band. I'm a guitarist, been one for years and knew a number of the songs GH/RB listed already. But picking up the "controller" for those games threw me for a loop. I just couldn't get the rythym down because my hands wanted to move in more directions than the controller allowed. Thus I hated those games. Well for other reasons as well, but the learning curve for me was steep. Too steep to enjoy it.
A number of the game players today are used to certain movements with controllers and switching to motion controls may be too much change for them to implement right away. That being said, I will point out that Kinect has massive potential and I can't wait to see how it will be used in the future. But for now, I like my blocky lump of beads.

Edit: I may note that I also have much experience with KB + Mouse usage, but I do prefer gamepads for certain games.