Controller Evolution

[RA92]

Well, don't buy the game, send a letter to the developer, encourage others to do the same.

Let me just make this clear - I've no problem whatsoever if developers start broadening their demography of customers. What I fear is a shift in interest to cater to that new demography. Look at Epic. They established themselves on the PC. But when they found the money was on consoles, they simply spat on customer loyalty and started making shitty PC titles like the GoW port (which came out about 2 years after the console version, with the bug issues never fixed) and UT3 (which actually had less features than UT2004). Obviously, PC gamers voted with their wallets and went "WTF?" How did it turn out? With Epic blaming things on <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100717-Epic-President-The-Moneys-On-Console>piracy, even though it was obviously just a case of MS giving the studio <url=http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a307109/epic-would-love-gears-of-war-on-ps3.html>"compelling reasons" to keep their GoW titles XBox exclusive. You know, the platform where all the money is. Hell, they're still being <url=http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/01/17/no-pc-bulletstorm-demo-cliffyb-indifferent/comment-page-2/#comments>dicks.

And it stings. CliffyB was the guy who made Jazz Jackrabbit, which was basically our cooler version of Sonic the Hedgehog. I was enraged when MS took away Crimson Skies and made it an XBox exclusive. It sucked how Sony took away Wipeout from us. The list goes on and on...

Also, what game are you talking about, that dumbs down it's control scheme for consoles?

Well, I put the phrase 'dumbed down' in quotation marks, because it usually isn't the case. Bioshock and Mass Effect were both ported from the Xbox, but I didn't really feel any discomfort using the K&M (except for the item management in ME1, which was clearly optimized for the controller).

But when it comes to RTS and RTT titles, the difference is visible. DA2 on the Xbox, for example, is based more on the hack-and-slash route (which is more oriented towards the controller) instead of the whole finely-tuned micromanaging tactical route (which is suited better for the K&M setup). Hell, the XBox version doesn't even have auto-attack.

Also, take a look at Tiberium Twilight. EA was trying to cater to both PC and console (though everyone was fired before they could finish a port) through radical simplification in gameplay. The result of the console-orientation was that it destroyed the Tiberium series for the PC community.

Along with that a lot of people raised their eyebrows when SupCom2 came out. It was more simplified than SupCom1 (which in turn was the spiritual successor to Total Annihilation, an RTS title arguably more important than StaCraft) to resolve 'accessibility issues' (Gas Powered Games was trying to make a break into the XBox market) that left a large portion of the fanbase cold. Fortunately, they brought forward major updates and changes post-release.

 

[Korne]

Sarah Brady believes that the average person is too stupid/paranoid to own guns. The vast majority of gun owners never break serious laws, and letting people carry guns has consistently resulted in less crime.

I know this has nothing to do with the original topic, but I have to ask...

Has letting people carry guns consistently resulted in less crime? What are we comparing this to? I would compare it to the closest country (culturally) that doesn't allow guns, The United Kingdom. While the UK has slightly more crime per capita, the US has much more violent crime, including murder.

 

[emusega]

This read was more interesting than the last one, as there was less agreeing and more extraction of points they don't agree on.
I'd like to say that I want to see more involvement of yahtzee, but then again, he is the one who already stated the most opinions in his videos and extra puctuation. Since he covered pretty much all of his stance on controllers I guess there is not really anything new to say from him.

What I am kinda missing is a certain connection to a certain group. It appears to me that James can mostly cover the point of view of the game developpers. Yahtee as the critic should be demanding certain features from the developers side. Bob appears to me as the one who plays games more for the actual fun of it, coupled with a lot of experience on the history of the developpment of a different and older medium: the movies.

So I would more expect something like this:

Y: Games are currently majorly lacking so and so. Game developpers should focus more on that.
J: Well, that sounds reasonable, but you should know that there are these and that problems and the current state is so and so.
B: We should also approach the issue from this or that side. Maybe people like it this or that side. The movie industry has similar problems and their approach to the problem was so and so.

???
Y: And whistled for a baboon.


Ok, scratch that last poart ^^
This is only a crude scenery of what I mean, but I hope you get the point. I might as well be wrong, I don't know.

 

[Jennacide]

Well, to reassure James' doubt in the last paragraph, I for one can attest to that happening. My older brother bought a Wii like everyone else, but never grew up with games. That started with me and our younger brother, who are avid gamers. Eventually he got bored of what he had with the Wii and asked us for advice on anything to get on the Virtual Console, for which we insisted he get Secret of Mana, Super Mario World, and Mario RPG. Weeks later when we spoke again he was infatuated with all three, and asked to borrow my old SNES and some games to play in his spare time, having finally finished the three Virtual Console ones.

So I know it's happened at least once, hopefully far more often than this.

 

[cdomville]

Is this around the next corner? I doubt it. The tech is already there, but the costs are very high for it. Also with investment in the tank new ideas are simply being deemed too risky. I think we'll only see it if the economy recovers very fast and after that there's another 20-30 year wait as someone of wealth actually decides to make it happen.

Agreed with most of what you said, but the fact is that technology tends to follow the adaptations of two versions of Moore's Law. Either processing power doubles or cost to manufacture halves over 2 years or so, more frequently 18 months. Kinect wouldn't have been possible tecnically as a consumer product at that price if there hadn't been other significant gains in R&D and the cost to manufacture the refined item at that price. It's the one reason why Microsoft are now more a focused R&D company funded by gaming, because they are trying to find ways to stay alive.

In addition, Windows is losing steam as an operating system because fewer people require a top of the line PC/laptop for their development or work. All they need is a home entertainment system and a device capable of surfing the web intuitively. the only reason that they need a PC is router configuration and syncing of applications and music form their personal collections. Apple recently said that we are in a 'post-PC era'. If you buy an iPad, you can get a keybord for your word processing, or you can get a Bluetooth keyboard and do the same thing, which is also present int eh Android tablets, and you can also present on HDMI out, so there is no need for a convential machine when you're presenting or even making these presentations.

Those two paragraphs are the reasons why your statement is incorrect. In 5 years time, we will have more poeople being more imaginative with fresh ideas game development (see Extra Credits' latest vid), and they will be underground, not in the AAA sector. From that independent sector will come new minds that will try and rethink what has come before in terms of control schemes.

 

[RelexCryo]

Sarah Brady believes that the average person is too stupid/paranoid to own guns. The vast majority of gun owners never break serious laws, and letting people carry guns has consistently resulted in less crime.

I know this has nothing to do with the original topic, but I have to ask...

Has letting people carry guns consistently resulted in less crime? What are we comparing this to? I would compare it to the closest country (culturally) that doesn't allow guns, The United Kingdom. While the UK has slightly more crime per capita, the US has much more violent crime, including murder.

UK isn't the closest country to the US in terms of living conditions. The UN did a study, and found that many parts of the US have similar living conditions to a third world country. The fact that are country is derived from the UK doesn't change the fact that we have very different living conditions, the UK offers a great deal of aid to the poor, the United States does not. Most of our murders are related to the drug trade, which is itself largely a result of poverty.

If you want to compare the UK to another country that gives tons of financial aid to the poor, compare it to Switzerland.

 

[brinvixen]

After reading the column (very insightful) and breezing through the forum (also very interesting and filled with valid points) I felt like dropping my own two cents, mainly towards the argument of controllers and first-time players.

Mind you, I agree with the idea that anyone who is handed a controller for the first time will probably regard it as a confusing device to understand (much less "master"), and find that their first hour or so of gameplay will be riddled with character deaths and frustration. And this can apply to all controllers: motion and button alike. The first time I played Wii Tennis, I kept missing the ball, because I couldn't time my swing just right, and my character kept randomly launching herself into the air and flailing wildly. Going further back, the controller for the first console I ever owned - a PS1 - had me rather bewildered, what with its R1 and R2 buttons oddly placed on the top of the thing, and the Start button being impossible to reach without breaking gameflow.

But, I enjoyed playing games. Controller frustration didn't win over fun, interactive experience. I've been a Playstation girl since I was about 8 (over ten years ago), and yet, my Sony seasoning didn't necessarily prepare for the updates made to the controllers. I used the D-pad for at least a year despite having a controller with an analog stick, because I couldn't get the analog sticks to listen to me like the D-pad did. I used to think that "Dual Shock" was disruptive and scary, even. And using the current Six-Axis on the PS3 controller still feels wonky to me. But I work at it. No one -- not even the "hardcore" gamers -- just pick up a controller and become "Master of the Game Universe".

What I'm coming down to is mainly addressing MovieBob's point about those people who have been playing games longer will have an inherent skill over those who haven't when it comes to controller control. Everyone, more or less, starts from ground zero when it comes to learning the works of the controller: whether it be clutching the device, or waggling a stick (or even moving in front of a camera and getting it to register you as a player, because I've played Kinect, and its a little blind at times). I think that controllers do not need to be altered in order to appease an audience (i.e motion controls doesn't have to equal casual gamer, because motion controls are "easier"...especially since that isn't necessarily so), because they'll all take a certain amount of time to navigate. And even though I know how to work the controller (and only a PS controller really, since that's what I own), I didn't need "Baby's First Controller" to get the hang of things, or have to be playing since the 80s/birth to get it either. I just worked with it till I could work it. If you're a first time player: yeah, the controller looks odd to you, but that shouldn't be a deal breaker, or make gaming inaccessible to you. It also shouldn't make you think that a motion controller will be "easier" than a handheld, as said before. If you like playing games, or you have an interest, or you just want to try them out, the type of controller shouldn't stop you.

 

[Flying Dagger]

Start a new gamer onto S.T.A.L.K.E.R SOC and just wait a few hours.

Heck, even I get flustered by the number of hotkeys sometimes. Can't remember what's bandages and what's medkits.

i made my girlfriend play half life 2 and she got confused by the number of keys she needed to remember... controls that seem intuitive - such as R for reload, have to be learned first, in the end she just gave up with the thing.

But I think they are missing a point (or I missed them making a point) about the power of flash based games. If you start people off on flash or java games, all you are missing is one or two steps of slightly more complex games that can fully transition a farmville player to a fully fledged pc gamer.
and I'm almost sure this happens in f2p mmos.

 

[eharriett]

Here's my question to this: how are new gamers learning proficiency on these controllers? I am old enough that my first games were on a Colecovision with the simple joysticks. After the gaming crashes of the 80s, I didn't get a console again until the PS2. But during all that time, I was still heavily gaming through a pc with it's mouse and keyboard. Is that still what people are using to learn controllers? The keyboard complexities of a pc make a dual shock simple by comparison. But pc gaming has dropped precipitously since I was learning the ropes. How are younger people learning to use a controller competently now?

 

[PowerC]

Ok, sorry to be a nuisance, but if James or anbody in Extra Punctuation sees this; The two people falling in love over a game of "Dance Central"? step back a second and please tell me that story, premise alone makes in sound amazing. The words coming into my head as I read them was pretty fantastic. Mabye fit it into an episode about Love & Relationships in games? one way or the other thats a story that needs told man...

 

[Srakin]

This is more directed at Bob than anyone, but I have two amazing games that debunk the whole "Guitar Hero is not Guitar Hero without the toy guitar" thing. UmJammer Lammy and Paparapa the Rapper were both amazing rhythm games that used the standard Playstation controller.

 

[Warachia]

Yahtzee did a whole extra punctuation on the presence of good tutorials, People will favour those over working into increasingly complex controllers. People are shallow minded, those who look past that will realize things like the wii controllers are nothing more than controllers with slight movement, and an acelerometer add on.

An example: I love the game Excite Truck, but using the wii-mote never let me feel like I was driving a car, I only felt like the buttons had been remapped.

A little extra bit, yes bob, how much you can get into the game does measure a game's worth. THAT IS WHY YOU ARE PLAYING THE GAME IN THE FIRST PLACE. There is no reason to buy ANY game if you aren't going to lose yourself in it in some aspect, the gameplay, the story, the characters, if you can't lose yourself in it, you just wasted money.

 

[Dhatz]

its silly that console gaming got rid of the older types of games, where on PC flash games get all types of 2D games covered.

 

[Misho-]

This is like a wet dream come true!!! James Porno, Yahtzee and Moviebob! The three guys responsible of me knowing the Escapist at all in the first place...

 

[Mister Linton]

Just want to say this is easily my new favorite feature on escapist. Please keep these coming.

 

[Saelune]

I much prefer using a 360 controller for Guitar Hero than the guitar. Certain songs are hard or impossible on it sure, but the songs where its a ton of single notes rapidly, is much easier, very fun, and people watching my hands become awed. In GH3 I think, I loved using a controller on expert on Reptilia. That was fun.

 

[unacomn]

The modern game controller, like my Logitech F510, is a marvel of technological achievement. It's packed with fairly precise dual analog sticks, two progressive triggers, a bunch of buttons and motors that can vibrate to the point where I can feel the weight of a car shifting in my hands in NFS5.

The problem is that most devs still think of a modern controller as an NES controller, and use it as suck. The day after I got my very nice gamepad I had a ton of ideas of how all it's features could be used, and they all had one thing in common, none of them were implemented in games. Why? Because simply massing the X button when the screen tells you too is easier to implement then, let's say, accurately applying pressure to the progressive triggers.

Here's a concrete example. At the end of Modern Warfare 2, instead of mash X to pull out that knife, how about slowly remove it with the progressive trigger or one of the sticks between heartbeats you could feel in the controller. No force feedback? No problem, use sound.

I had an idea for a section of a game where a character would stumble trough the darkness with only the sound from the game and the force feedback as direction. Why don't I see stuff like this in games? Most controllers are standardized at this point, there shouldn't be problems with implementation across a hardware made by different manufacturers.

 

[JimmyC99]

speaking of game continuity, now with the advent of Wikia's such as The Vault, UESP and the Mass Effect Wikia, games are now far far easier to learn the past of buy just going on the internet, hell watching lets plays of a previous game before you buy the new one would make sure you know the story. lets say for example you wanted to buy Fallout New Vegas, but wanted to learn the history of the Fallout Universe first so you know who was who, why some people hate others etc. well you could buy the Fallout 1 and 2 and spend several weeks playing them, or you could jump on to the internet and go to The Vault and read up there, or even use one of the links there to download the Fallout Bible and read that. now you know more about the Fallout universe then most developers who work on the games.

 

[daemongarso]

This is probably a tired example, but I thought Portal did the best tutorial ever because I didn't know I was playing a tutorial in the traditional sense. Instead I was discovering game mechanics. On the second play through, I was perfecting mechanics already learned, but I am still accomplishing things within the context of the game. Movies have "Show me don't tell me" as a primary rule for all film. Games should have "let me experience don't just let me watch." again, nothing new, just missing from this discussion as far as I could tell.

 

[Therumancer]

Hmm, perhaps I missed it, but it seems like the current debate misses the most important point.

Controllers have gotten more complicated in response to better games that require more, and more advanced controls to make function. It's the increasing quality and complexity of games that has caused the industry to explode to the point where more people want to become gamers. Right now we're looking at a situation where consoles are "catching up" to PC games and seeing a lot more decent multi-platform releases because the consoles can now do things that they once couldn't and it's all those buttons and knobs on a controller that makes it possible where having a thumbpad or joystick and a couple of buttons once seriously limited the options. The simplicity of old school controllers was one of the reasons why a lot of people felt that consoles would NEVER be able to catch up with the PCs.

I mean sure, we could go back to the whole "joystick and one button" or "gamepad and two buttons" control scheme, which would be easier on casuals, but then not as many people would be wanting to play those games. Those "casuals" would not be as attracted to gaming anymore.

I will also say that I think motion controls are interesting, but seem to be stuck in a rut. Also the simple fact that motion control games aren't all that relaxing (you have to get up and spaz out) is going to be a barrier. Right now I think there aren't many games that go beyond the basic, gimmicky, casual level that aren't "hardcore". Simply put the industry needs more intermediate game development, games that say help to wean casual gamers into
more advanced fare, and are more focused on the games themselves rather than the gimmick
used to play them.

Another concern that I admit to is that with gaming reaching a bigger audience there is concern over it being all-inclusive. That's a slippery slope if there ever was one. With no offense to those who are physically handicapped, a LOT of things are ruined when they have to be changed or altered signifigantly to be accessible to them. Say designing a roller coaster so it can take a physically disabled person, which mandates it being able to run a specific type of car which can't safely hold that person unless it goes slower and doesn't perform certain manuvers. As a result of that one in a million guy, the hundreds of thousands of other people are left with an inferior experience.

With something like gaming, I have great respect for those who can overcome their disabillities to do something that logically they shouldn't be able to. If some physically disabled person learns to play "Dragon Age" or "Street Fighter" with his nose, good for them, but games should not be adjusted to accomodate such people at the expense of the rest of society and the genere as a whole.

The same basic logic applies to casuals, the problem with the gaming industry is in trying to make EVERY game accessible to the lowest human denominator.

I confess to some concern over games that have done things like include a "one button mode" and turned the whole thing into little more than a timing exercise intergrated into a movie (a giant, constant quicktime event so to speak). Right now it's intended for disabled people, but how long until we start seeing demands that if one game has done it, every game should do it, and games are designed around having to be able to accomodate such things? That's not a good move for gaming as a whole, and the same basic logic applies to casual gamers on a lot of levels.

Such are my thoughts.