The Dumbification of Gaming

[VonBrewskie]

Feel this picture is appropriate:

Not sure what's sadder, the fact that FPS's have basically become hallways, or that I can run that DOOM map with my eyes closed...

To be fair, the map on the left cost as many man-hours to create as perhaps half-way to the first cutscene on the map of the right. In this case it's not a matter of simplifying to appeal to the masses, but of how graphically-intense today's 3D games are.

-- Steve

Fair point. I think that the hallway games with epic cutscenes miss the forest for the trees. Nowadays we either get hallways shooters, or sandbox shooters. Very little left in the middle. I wonder though, about the point you made about the Doom map being less graphically intense. For the machines it ran on, wasn't it still difficult to program those kinds of games? In other words, I remember it took a good long time for Doom 2 to come out. Almost as long as it took for MW2 to come out, yeah? I don't know. I'm really asking.

Yeah, Doom (and to a lesser extent, Doom 2) are amazing feats of programming skill, but most of the work in creating a game isn't programming, especially not for modern games.
It's the art.

Artists outnumber just about every other member of a modern development team. And, if I've understood certain recent discussions correctly, in terms of workload we are now at the worst possible point in history for developing artwork for use in games;

The hardware is quite powerful, but not powerful enough to allow the use of any arbitrary design without careful optimization.

In the past, technical limitations were so large that artists needed to keep their designs so simple and low detail that the lack of detail stopped it from taking forever.

Now, just about anything can be designed, but an artist will spend much more time on fine-tuning stuff so the game will run as fast as it can, than on actually creating the overall graphical content itself.

Like... Maybe adjusting the placement of a tree slightly so it obscures your view just a tiny bit...
Or removing detail from spots nobody will be likely to get close to...
Lots of little fiddly things that have to be tested over and over.

Nice. I appreciate the feedback I've been getting from you all. I don't know very much about game design. I was wondering, do you (or anyone else), think the explosion of indie titles, "casual" games and mobile gaming is indicitive of the fact that a profitable percentage of people will consume titles with less intense graphics but superior gameplay, or is it truly a "dumbing down" of the gaming public, IYO?

 

[RandV80]

This is kind of why I hate it how over the last couple of years the 'masses' would trash on fans of the old Fallout complaining about the changes in then upcoming Fallout 3, or for a very similar example in movies the most recent Stark Trek movie vs the old Trekkie's. I don't belong to either of those minorities, but because I'm sure almost everyone has their own niche taste you should at least be sympathetic because it could easily happen to you.

See for example the small scale casual/social networking games surpassing the big AAA titles in profits. If you complained about Fallout 1 & 2 fans being bitchy, but also complain and/or are worried about the rise of motion control or casual games, then you're being hypocritical.

 

[Dimitriov]

Wait. Someone actually likes Civ 5? I find that utterly incomprehensible.

 

[The3rdEye]

Quite complaining that X-com is not Enemy Unknown, that game has already been made and any attempt to reproduce it will inevitably fall short because if it's different, there will be some who "hates" it.

The problem I have with the new X-Com is that it has literally no reason to be an X-Com game. The date has been changed; the genre has been changed; the aliens have been changed; the only similarity between the two games is that aliens attack earth and the humans fight back. Under this requirement Halo could be an X-Com game.

Even from a publicity standpoint it doesn't make sense. Enemy Unknown came out in '94: fifteen years ago. You can use popular franchises to branch out in genres (World of Warcraft, the Halo RTS) but most modern gamers aren't going to recall the X-Com name. Probably only people who played it would take notice, and why should they care when the game has no relation to the game they played?

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you on all points. What I was implying is that there will be re-makes, impostors and forgeries of XCOM-EU but nothing will ever be able to capture all the good things about the original Xcom series because they've already been done. As for the reason behind the new Xcom game from 2K Marin, my guess is that this is a comparatively large project and it's also their first "independent/original" project. What better way to spread word quickly and surely but to use the title of one of the most loved TBS games of all time? I can see reasons why they would do it, I just don't think they're very good ones.

 

[Lord_Jaroh]

Well, now we have tutorials. Back in the days of big, colorful manuals, games didn't have tutorials, either because there wasn't enough space on the distribution media to add one to the game, or they just didn't bother (because they were going to include a big, colorful manual).

Frankly, I kind of like the fact that games have gotten more accessible; it means I can play and enjoy more types of games. I remember trying to get into FA-18 Strike Eagle, an early air combat simulator. You literally have to learn how to fly a fighter jet just to be able to play that game, let alone finish it. I don't want to have to spend days or weeks mastering the mechanics of one game before I can even play it.

That's because it's an "air combat SIMULATOR". For those that just want to fly a plane and shoot crap down, there was Afterburner and their sequels.

I don't think everybody should be able to play every game well, and developers should stop trying to make every game they make appeal to the lowest common demographic just so that everyone will buy their game (but no one will LIKE it...). Those that like the game as it is will go out of their way to try and master it. Those that don't will move on to the next big thing. On a second note, demos need to be accurate in their portrayal of a game, or else there needs to be some sort of "buyer's insurance" so that he doesn't buy a game that he will not like and be stuck with it.

I like games that are hard, challenging etc. Should all games be that way? No. There should be games for everyone's individual taste, not try to homogenize every game. Developers want everyone's money though, and the only way to get that is to make sure that their game has such a low barrier to entry no one can fail to be able to play it. Which in turn makes it to simple for those that want a challenge.

And we certainly don't need any more "Nintendo Hard" games that most of us mere mortals can't even finish.

Certainly we do. There are hardly any of them made anymore, games that require you to master the game to be able to beat it. I wish that there were more of those, just of excelling quality.

As usual, I agree with Shamus. What we need are games with more scalable difficulty, greater depth for the players who want it, and more open-endedness for everyone.

And I would rather see more different games, so those that want a challenge can buy game x and those that want it simple can buy different game y. This way everyone can enjoy their own unique experiences without infringing upon other's style of play. Not everyone enjoyed Megaman 9, and for them there are many other games to play, even in similar style. But to require Megaman 9 to be of such simplistic challenge that everyone can beat it...

That's not to say that games should be without scalable difficulty. To me, that's more of a replayability issue than anything. I want to be able to play the game that I mastered on a harder difficulty setting to give me more of a challenge. It would be nice if developers would put more time and thought into that though and make difficulty more than add x hitpoints to all enemies and have them do +x damage...

 

[Espsychologist]

Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden II were both excellent examples of how to make a game accessible (mostly) to new fans and allow gamers who wanted to have their asses handed to them...repeatedly...the option to do so.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

There is a line between making a game "simple" and making a game "dumb".

Making it so that you don't need to memorize what EVERY SINGLE KEY on your keyboard does and limiting it so that you can just use a few keys and still do just about everything without having to go through a sea of menus? That's "simple".

Making it so that there area few keys that do everything and then every few minutes going "HEY! REMEMBER THAT KEY? IT DOES THIS! IT DOES THIS! REMEMBER? YOU PROBABLY DON'T REMEMBER, BUT THAT KEY DOES THIS, AND THIS'D PROBABLY HELP RIGHT ABOUT HERE! REMEMBER?", thinking the player is too stupid to figure out what action would help. That's "dumb".

Making it so that if you die 8 times, you can skip the level, if so you chose, or maybe ramp the difficulty down? That's "simple".

Offering it the first time you die? That's "dumb".

Not having over 100 troops that really only have 10 functions, with some that are so situational that most end up useless, but make navigating menus hard? That's "simple".

Making something where the best strategy in ANY situation is "run first, shoot gun, die, respawn, repeat until enemy is dead"? That's dumb.

Remembering gamers only have 10 fingers? That's "simple".

Assuming gamers only have 10 IQ points? That's "dumb".

Thank you, voice of reason! Brilliantly put. I HATE it when games ("FEAR" in particular comes to mind) assume that I'm half-witted. Which I'm not (despite what my previous posts may have led you to believe.)

I mean, "System Shock 2" used to count as "survival horror". Now "FEAR" does. I trust I've made my feelings on both sufficiently clear (namely, "FEAR" is frustrating, badly designed, with annoying characters, an incomprehensible story and - worst of all - not scary; "System Shock" is probably the greatest game ever made, and its sequel mostly lives up to the original).

 

[Who Dares Wins]

"I've burned through thousands and thousands of words comparing Fallout 3 to the original Fallout"
WHERE??? I MUST KNOW!!! I checked Twenty-Sided but I couldn't find anything. If a thing such as Shamus comparing my favorite game of all time to something else I must read it.

 

[00slash00]

im glad im not the only one who greatly prefers the original fallout games, to fallout 3 and new vegas

 

[JediMB]

The side quests, for example: you pick up a random item of no particular importance - other than the nifty little arrow next to the name, indicating it is a quest item. You've now got a journal entry that tells you exactly where to deliver said item. It's also on your map. And when you happen upon the target NPC, he or she will have a giant arrow over his/her head.

This isn't an MMO. The quests aren't supposed to be an annoying race against the clock, mere obstacles between me and a max level character ready to participate in the "real" game. The quests are supposed to comprise the desired experience.

TLDR version: Damn you, WoW.

Might be worth noting that the delivery quests were basically filler content stuffed in right before they hit their development deadline.

 

[Iwana Humpalot]

I personally have no problem whit games gettin "dumber" i actually like it. (As long as you can choose your difficulty level, expect in games like RDR where it really works) And i personally see Fallout 3 way more superior compared to first Fallouts (And this is a type of game that doesn't have soldiers whit A/B gun, if you make a modern shooter and you want it to be realistic, you can't throw those super-huge mutant bosses in them). The more immediate, accessible experience, is not bad. It just makes it faster to learn and enjoy the game, rather than yelling at the game and checking some wikipedia page about some problem you are having, these days you dont have that problem, you can just ENJOY the game as you are supposed to. And if you don't like it, you can go always back to your nostalgic games section and play those games.

 

[Angstysquirrel]

If people are complaining about games that are too easy, or hold your hand too much, they should try playing Dwarf Fortress. Unless you have a tutorial or a good friend to help you out, you will have no idea how to do anything. Still an absolutely fantastic game, it's just hard to figure things out on your own.

 

[SemiHumanTarget]

Gotta disagree with the "casual" PC gamer comparison. If you're talking about people that play Snake at work or something, sure, I'll give you that. But actual gamers who prefer the PC over consoles, in my experience, tend to play harder, more complicated games in general than console players.

Also, where can I find that Fallout 3/original Fallout comparison? I'm with you there - I love the new ones, but I think the first two were much better experiences.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

I couldn't possibly agree more with you, good sir.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Sorry but its a fact, the decline in game qaulity is related to how they have remade and marketed the games not to gamers but mass media zombies who are too dumb to know better. So no I blame bad games that manage to get a profit on consumers and publishers evenly.

 

[Aurora Firestorm]

It's about time someone gave System Shock 2 some credit. Everyone who says they think BioShock is awesome needs to step back and play SS2 and then realize that there is a far superior game that needs some mass media fame.

Anyway. Games are indeed getting easier. I swear that even the Chrono Trigger DS remake was easier than the original cartridge for the SNES. I had to grind in the original. In the DS version, I blew through bosses like a hot knife through butter with no extra effort. Sigh.

I still blame the people trying to make core games appeal to casual gamers. Quit it. You're screwing the rest of us over.

 

[Stevepinto3]

There is at least one thing I can be thankful for about linear design of levels. Ever remember going through an old game, getting presented with multiple paths, only to pick one and discover it takes you to a boss or something, and locks you out of the other paths despite there possibly being something worth picking up back there? Yeah, that pissed me off.

Apart from that though I don't really see why exploration is just completely cut from most shooters now. The guys at EC said that it was because you don't need to go searching for health packs, but you could still add other things worth searching for (ammo, money, upgrades, etc.).

 

[JET1971]

Ill say it again, difficulty and dumbing down are 2 seperate issues. you can make a game thats insanely difficult to beat but theres nothing to it at all as far as content or replayability goes. the 3 standard modes for games is the only thing that should impact difficulty. you like them insanely hard? pick hard mode when you start it. if you like them easy because you just arnt good at games but still want to play then theres easy for you. if you like some challenge but dont like it to be near impossible then normal mode. every game for console or PC should have these choices at the start when you create your character excluding multiplayer only games. Not including the basic three choices for difficulty is dumbing the game down!

in first person shooters a current fad is having a "hardcore" mode. nothing hardcore about it. the normal mode they just gave you more health and large bullet spread. in hardcore there no scope adjustment for elevation or wind affecting bullets that would make it hardcore all it is is what was easy mode in past FPS titles. what happened to armories where you can change weappons or restock ammo? what happened to choosing what your character looks like alongside his role? what happened to medpacks (need for them)? what happened to having all sorts of hidden areas or different paths to objectives? take BFBC2 for example. hardcore is normal mode in older games. you have 4 skills sets that you cant choose what to look like, every map has practicly 1 way to get to the objectives. you have no need for health kits. has less features than BF1942! removing those features is what dumbing down means to me.

 

[JET1971]

There is at least one thing I can be thankful for about linear design of levels. Ever remember going through an old game, getting presented with multiple paths, only to pick one and discover it takes you to a boss or something, and locks you out of the other paths despite there possibly being something worth picking up back there? Yeah, that pissed me off.

Apart from that though I don't really see why exploration is just completely cut from most shooters now. The guys at EC said that it was because you don't need to go searching for health packs, but you could still add other things worth searching for (ammo, money, upgrades, etc.).

That is dumbing down in every sense. instead of improving the game by allowing you to turn back and try a different route they just dont give you a choice to begin with. thats the dev teams getting lazy and making the game boring with no replayability. HL1 and HL2 linear games in every sense but you could mess around in each area and find all the hidden things. there was health and ammo you needed to find. even being linear they were great games and rich in features. games today you have health regen, every enemy drops plenty of ammo, set paths with nothing else to do. thats dumbing down and making the games have no replayability.

 

[Continuity]

You are correct(ahh...the level design of Heretic,Hexen...Dark Force), however I disagree on one of your points. I believe that the niche market is big enough to support developers, yes they aren't going to sell 10 million copies, but they can sell enough to be comfortable.
Example being Team ICO and CDProject Red - they are selling games for (relatively) small audience and they've been successful, same as the guys with Amnesia. There is a market for everyone, and I believe that sooner or later we will realize that. The market for games with "wide appeal" is over saturated, it's just a matter of time before publishers decide to be more flexible with their money.

God I hope you're right, or else things will get mighty dull ^^

But yes, even though there aren't many doing it there are still developers making games for niche markets, we just want to see much much more of that. However the trend seems to be very much away from the niche... It seems that if a company "makes it" in a niche market then their next move is always to make a multi-platform "dumbed down" sequel to really rinse profit out of the masses.

What we want is some artistic integrity in the industry, games made to be good games rather than just games that sell well. hopefully there will be companies that make a living doing that, they're scant few in number at the moment.

I still blame the people trying to make core games appeal to casual gamers. Quit it. You're screwing the rest of us over.

But there's gold in them thar hills!

Sadly.

Personally I hate the fact that FPS and WRPG have gone mainstream, in most cases it has been to the detriment of the games, and I hate to say it, given the tone of the OP article, but a lot of this has to do with adapting for the consoles on multi-platform releases. They're taking core PC games and simplifying them so that they're playable on a controller. Though granted they are doing lots of other horrible things to them too, so only a small part of the blame can be laid at the door of multi-platform release.

I personally have no problem whit games gettin "dumber" i actually like it. (As long as you can choose your difficulty level, expect in games like RDR where it really works) And i personally see Fallout 3 way more superior compared to first Fallouts (And this is a type of game that doesn't have soldiers whit A/B gun, if you make a modern shooter and you want it to be realistic, you can't throw those super-huge mutant bosses in them). The more immediate, accessible experience, is not bad. It just makes it faster to learn and enjoy the game, rather than yelling at the game and checking some wikipedia page about some problem you are having, these days you dont have that problem, you can just ENJOY the game as you are supposed to. And if you don't like it, you can go always back to your nostalgic games section and play those games.

Well thats fine, for you, but the rest of us would like to play some new games too and we'd like them to be content rich.

You have to realise that accessible is great for casual gamers and beginners (a huge market), but its really tedious and content poor for the veteran gamers, who are looking for depth and complexity. Different people will enjoy different things, I have no problem with some, or even most AAA games being noob friendly, I just want there to be something meatier for the rest of us too.