The Dumbification of Gaming

[A Curious Fellow]

Did he make any points here that haven't been made before?

 

[Continuity]

First off, you're comparing RPGs to action games, which is just dumb.

Second, I never argued anything about how easy PC games are. I argued against the apparent "pc-based casual crowd" that gets the blame for games becoming easy, which is unheard of for me.

I think you're missing the point, and I don't know if anyone has put you straight but just in case they haven't:

"pc-based casual crowd" is not referring to mainstream PC gaming, i.e. games you buy in a shop or on steam, he's talking about web games, stuff you play on facebook and the like. That is the huge core of the casual market, the browser game, with their carefully crafted skinner boxes, metrics, and real money purchasable upgrades etc.. hes talking about Zynga an their ilk, very much PC based i'm afraid.

 

[mastiffchild]

Eventually they will lay the blame at the feet of the (mostly PC based) casual crowd and their sense of entitlement.

What? That doesn't make sense. The casual crowd isn't mostly PC based, and there is no PC based casual crowd that gets the blame for games becoming easier. What are you on about.

He has a point. PC games haven't been mechanicly challenging...ever...Wizardry, Might and Magic and Ultima are hard if you don't know what to do, but as long as you figure it out you are fine.

On the other hand knowledge won't get you through Contra or Ninja Guiden.

Yeah, you raise an important point-you see that difficulty in games can be down to different things. Some things you can counter, as a player, by learning what the game wants ansd applying that knowledge but the other difficulty is beaten only by skill, luck or a lot of practise to try and obtain the other two!!


As for Seamus' point-isn't he talking about console gamers railing against the games people play by Popcap or whoever on Facebook? I THINK those are the PC based casual gamers he means they talk about dumbing things down. The argument goes that people get into Farmville and then look further into gaming-a LOT of people play games like Farmville and they're often people new to gaming. Devs want these new gamers playing their games and thus don't want either too much knowledge needed to play their next OR too much skill. At least I THINK that's the argument he means-I've certainly heard similar anyway.

The answer has to lie in the difficulty levels and they have to (devs) up both the skill and number and difficulty of game mechanics(i.e knowledge needed) as the levels get harder for everyone to be happy.

 

[DanDeFool]

Spoiler

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...

Let me clarify a couple of things.

First of all, you make a good point about FA-18 Strike Eagle. Yes, it is an air combat simulator, and on not really intended to be a "game" per-se. I was just trying to make the point that more complexity in games won't necessarily get us anywhere because more complex =/= more enjoyable.

Second, I may have misused the term "Nintendo Hard", so to clarify, I meant games that aren't just difficult, but unfairly difficult. Games where you die after one simple mistake, are given very few lives, no continues, and after you fail you get sent back to the beginning of the game. In the past, hardware limitations placed a pretty hard limit on the amount of content a game could have (not to mention cost and technical restrictions) so the best way to stretch out a game was just to make it aggressively difficult and very unforgiving. e.g.: Battletoads.

Seriously, FUCK Battletoads...

Anyway, Battletoads aside, many early Nintendo games also had very poor controls and no save or password system. Games like that are just frustrating. Some people get--well, enjoyment is probably not the right word--a sense of satisfaction from playing games like that. I once heard that playing romhacks and games like Battletoads was the gaming equivalent of cutting yourself. Not my words, but I think whoever said that was definitely on to something. Bottom line, that level of difficulty just isn't for most people.

Anyway, that is what I meant when I said we don't need more "Nintendo Hard" games. Being hard for hardness sake (especially if that hardness is bullshit hardness) =/= more enjoyable.

A good example of a difficult game done well would be something like Super Meat Boy. It's hard, and you die constantly, but there are some concessions made for the less-hardcore (i.e. about 90% of everyone who plays games). You die in one hit, but you respawn very quickly, you can skip a level or two if you get stuck, and you never have to start all the way back from the beginning. Another good example might be Cave Story, where, again, there are save points, unlimited continues, and the game is pretty liberal with the power-ups to boot. Hell, even I Wanna Be The Guy is better than most early Nintendo games.

And note, all three of those entries are indie titles that were either released free or at very low cost. Games that are that difficult can only hope for niche appeal, precisely because when most people play those games they just get frustrated and give up. Then they tell their friends that the game sucks and all the game's market appeal dries up through word of mouth.

You CAN'T make a AAA title that is that difficult and expect to market it to a large-enough audience to get your money back. Unless you already have a fondly-remembered brand name and put in lots of blood and tits (like Ninja Gaiden).

I think the main point we can both agree on is that if a dev waters down the difficulty too much then you also get into trouble because then the game isn't challenging enough for anyone to enjoy. Borderlands is a good example of this. I was kind of weirded-out by the fact that you can't select a difficulty level when you start a new game. Later, I discovered that the harder difficulties unlock when you start a new game from a previously completed run; so that's great--the game doesn't start to get challenging until you've experienced almost all the content and there's no way to get around it. Of course, if Borderlands had had a more compelling story or more interesting character interactions it might not have mattered, so low difficulty was by no means that game's only problem.

You mentioned that having scalable difficulty =" bad guys have more health, you have less health, etc.", isn't the best way to solve this problem, and I agree. I think this is where DLC has great potential. You can have the basic game be of relatively moderate difficulty, then release "hardcore" DLC packs which crank the difficulty dial up to 11 through things like level design, AI modifications, imposed gameplay restrictions, etc. Then people who completed the main game and want more of a challenge can keep playing, and those who've finished the main game and don't care can move on to something else.

That said, I think RARE's Goldeneye and Perfect Dark implemented increased difficulty in a very clever way by adding extra mission objectives to each level in the harder difficulties. Maybe that's another good way to approach scalability.

 

[justnotcricket]

I would agree with Akalabeth that the combat in PoP (cell shaded flavour) was total arse, which made it a good thing that you didn't have to do it very often. I also agree with Straying Bullet, however, in that the the game was fun. For me it was just the sheer joy of swinging and flipping and parkour-ing my way around pretty levels. Admittedly, it was the first PoP game I had ever played, so perhaps I didn't have any preconceived expectations of how things should be, but at the same time I had no nostalgia bias, and so I can say that as someone new to the series (?) it genuinely stands up on its own if you like exploring a pretty world in flippy, swingy PoP style. As a veteran of Tomb Raider exploration, the feedom and fluidity of PoP was gloriously liberating. I guess you could say 'oh, well, she just didn't know any better' but at the end of the day, I had fun, and that's the point, right?

Well, personally I like the fighting. Not the exploring. So the cell shaded is going to be very shortly traded in for some credit towards something else. The swinging around on bars and so forth is cool and all, but, I can't hack a game where all I'm doing is gathering orbs. Or I suppose what I'm saying is that exploring is fine, but there needs to be some more to it than that. And in cell shaded POP I didn't find that.

I would recommend you check out the other Prince of Persia games. Another one that has combat and some wall running type of stuff is Blood Rayne 1+2. They're both pretty decent as well (and available on gog.com for pretty cheap).

I do wish the combat was better, I have to admit. And better integrated into the progression as a whole. Assassin's creed is a little better for this (although the 'combat' style is totally different), in that you could still 'parkour' your way around a pretty map, but 'combat' instances popped up logically and were satisfying to beat. I guess PoP just hit enough happy buttons that I let it pass. I have actually been meaning to try Sands of Time, if nothing else, since I think I played maybe 20 seconds of it at a friend's place once, and since it seems to be on many whitelists (not just Yahtzee's).

 

[JET1971]

If a game company has not figured out how to do easy, normal, and hard scalability with no real changes in the game between each then they should flat out get out of the market and make animated movies instead. seriously all you do is make your game and have the AI set for easy "i did this 100 times" or more mode for the dev team(if they cant waltz through the game they shouldnt be making it) then tone them down for easy mode and up for hard. easy should make the dev team start snoring, hard should make them work. normal should be a walk in the park for the dev team.

I have maps for a mod I did for a game where I was called an SOB for having the AI too good. reality the AI were placed well and the stock maps had more accurate AI than mine, just plopped about randomly. but when i played those maps i was walking through them without getting shot once. all a simple accuracy setting that can be done to have all 3 modes.

 

[Eldarion]

TLDR version: Damn you, WoW.

You mean "Damn you, everquest" right?

 

[justnotcricket]

I do wish the combat was better, I have to admit. And better integrated into the progression as a whole. Assassin's creed is a little better for this (although the 'combat' style is totally different), in that you could still 'parkour' your way around a pretty map, but 'combat' instances popped up logically and were satisfying to beat. I guess PoP just hit enough happy buttons that I let it pass. I have actually been meaning to try Sands of Time, if nothing else, since I think I played maybe 20 seconds of it at a friend's place once, and since it seems to be on many whitelists (not just Yahtzee's).

Well the combat in SoT can get a touch repetitive, but it's still satisfying. The second game makes the combat a lot more enjoyable (except for some cheap bosses), but the story takes a bit of a nose dive. Tries to get all hardcore badass. Haven't played the third. And forgotten sands, which is actually the fifth game after the cell-shaded one is also quite good.

I did actually try Forgotten Sands, but I found it, somehow, surprisingly and disappointingly linear. But perhaps I'd been playing too much AC at the time =P Does it get less linear further in? Cos I only played through the first couple of stages before I sort of lost interest.

 

[llubtoille]

I enjoy easy games,
if playing a game on easy is any harder than watching a movie, then it's not easy enough XD

Dragon Age 2 did a great job on easy mode, especially compared to Dragon Age 1.
You can beat most (all?) encounters just by sitting back as a healer and clicking 2 buttons.
If I wanted a challenge (which I don't), then I wouldn't have it set to easy / casual mode.

In the past I played a lot of Diablo 2, then I tried playing games like baldurs gate and NWN.
I would end up lost and confused pretty quickly, giving up before beating the tutorial / intro XD

Dragon Age 2 has more or less taught me the basics of these group rpg games, so I'd feel a fair bit more confident attempting those older games now.

Whether Nightmare difficulty is too easy / simplistic... I don't know, haven't tried it, but easy mode is just about right ^.^

 

[Jyggalag]

I believe a lot has to do with appealing to "causal gamers." It's an intelligent marketing decision to say the least. Making games more and more accessible appeals to a wider and wider crowd.
I also believe that the statement that games are "immature" is becoming more and more relevant as games become easier and easier.
Also, define "easy." Is a game easy because of the execution, (Doing what you want to do via hitting the right buttons and quickly) tactics, (learning different strategies to overcome obstacles as you play) understandable tutorials, the time spent playing, or complexity/the lack thereof?
I suppose every game should have all of the elements completely understandable and allows the player to practice his/her tactical skills. Should the execution be easy? Should a twenty hit combo be simple leaving only room for strategy in fighting games? (Countering is the only one I can think of)

 

[justnotcricket]

Hmmn, no they're pretty much linear.
The least linear one I've played is probably the second one, the Two Thrones I believe it is. After a certain point it allows you to tackle certain areas in whatever order you want. And each area has a bit of flexibility. Though it's pretty linear within that. It's not like Assassin's creed where I believe you basically roam around the city and go kill your guy however you want (I've not played it).

I don't mind the linear games as long as the story and action is engaging. Another example is Enslaved: Odyssey to the West which I just finished. Super linear, but I love the world and the characters are fairly compelling.

I don't know about assassin's creed but that's the problem I've always had with sandbox games. The stories tend to be very boring and uninteresting. Someday I'll give AC a go though.

I played Odyssey to the West a while ago too, and while I agreed with Susan Arendt's appreciation of the vibrant colour of the world, I actually felt that the combat was, once again, a little repetitive. This is odd actually; I'm not entirely sure what it is that does it for me combat wise, because I enjoyed the combat in DA:2 and in all the Dynasty Warriors games, so repetitive combat can't exactly be a turn-off for me...a mystery for the ages, I guess! =P

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

TLDR version: Damn you, WoW.

You mean "Damn you, everquest" right?

Not in the slightest.

I played Everquest. Wizard, Cleric, Paladin, Enchanter (still my favorite MMO class of all time). Ground-breaking game. WoW was in a completely different league in terms of both polish and success. EQ, for all of its innovation, didn't sway an entire generation of game design. Blizzard did.

 

[Trent_Steel]

Just started Killzone and have to say that in terms of single player at least, this dumbing down really is beginning to suck my enjoyment out of games. There's none of the exploration, fear and excitement of Doom, none of the endlessly replayable fun of Goldeneye or Timesplitters, none of the atmosphere of Half-Life 2. It's just explosions, fist-bumping and linear shooting gallery mechanics. I'm an hour in and doubt I'll go much further.

p.s. I've always seen the 360 - PS3 divide as a fratboy - Otaku thing rather than fratboy - dumb jock.

 

[rda_Highlander]

Sincerely to the fiery enemies of "Dumbification".
Play rogue-like. Play Dwarf Fortress. Shut the fuck up.
Thank you.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Sincerely to the fiery enemies of "Dumbification".
Play rogue-like. Play Dwarf Fortress. Shut the fuck up.
Thank you.

Shuffling everyone into one niche' genre isn't going to add depth to the other genres.

 

[braincore02]

Man I played a few levels of Battletoads recently, and I certainly don't mind that games have gotten easier. Damn you level threeeee!