The Dumbification of Gaming

[Shamanic Rhythm]

The biggest problem with the whole 'games are being dumbed-down' debate is that it tends to confuse difficulty with streamlining the interface and level design. Those are completely separate concepts which nevertheless feed back into the overall experience a player has with being 'challenged' by the game, but they're not usually the determining factors in how easy a game is. I've been playing games for about a decade now, and I don't think games have gotten any easier to complete.

An extremely complex interface contributed to Baldur's Gate II being a very challenging game to master, for instance, but I don't think complicating the player's interface to increase difficulty should be considered good design. It's like trying to play tennis with ropes attached to your every limb. Dragon Age II is a much easier game to play because the interface has been refined so it's a lot easier to find the fireball spell when you really need it, but at the same time, they've simplified the interface so much that most items no longer have a distinct portrait, taking much of the flavour out of the world. This doesn't really affect the difficulty, but it nevertheless gets lumped in with complaints that the game has been 'dumbed down'. In my mind it's more a case of lazy design.

As Samus points out, this mindset is primarily due to people having the perception that developers want to target a wider audience and are consequently making the game easier to get more people involved. I don't think that's the case, devs will always want more people to get involved, but publishers want them to get games out much faster than ever before, so they don't have time to put in complex game mechanics. Because of publishers, the dynamic has shifted away from 'huge game with 3-5 year development cycle' to 'game with 1-2 year development cycle with extra DLC'. Publishers love DLC for obvious reasons, but in developing extra DLC the devs can only really offer more scenarios for existing mechanics: they can't really make the game mechanics any more complex.

For those of you wanting something succinct to take away from this: gamers aren't to blame for the changes in design, corporatised publishing companies are.

 

[templargunman]

I actually found hard mode in new vegas pretty easy, I just had to tolerate a slightly less healthy character, it didn't effect enough of the game to be actually hard. I didn't even notice it was on most of the time.

 

[bassdrum]

I think that, at least to some degree, it's important to factor in development costs when you consider the 'dumbification' of games. Sure, accessibility is becoming more and more important as time goes on, but there's also the very real fact that the costs associated with making a game are ballooning. Back when Doom came out, games were developed by pretty small teams of people, and many art assets were still sprite based (and what true 3D elements there were were all pretty simple). Now, todays games are made by significantly larger teams (all of whom have to be paid, obviously) who are working with significantly more intricate details. This is a large part of why we're seeing more linear games with fewer enemy types in them: each branch in a path is another whole area which needs to be fully detailed and fleshed out, and must look and play differently from the other path. This takes a lot of time and money. Plus, putting a full menagerie of enemy types in involves actually MAKING those enemies, which means making the models, the animations, the sounds, setting the values (i.e. for damage, health, etc.)--even more time and money.

I'm not saying that this fully explains the simplification of games, its just that rising costs (in terms of both time and money) mean that streamlining is an effective way of getting the product out to the people who are going to pay for it sooner and at lower cost (and, as Shamus points out, there's the added bonus of accessibility, adding more potential customers, meaning more profit). Therefore, costs go down, consumer base grows, and anybody with a basic understanding of business can tell you that that's generally a good thing.

Regardless, in the end, it all comes down to decisions made by the developers which has very little to do with one group or another (you know, like PC or console gamers). In fact, in many ways it has absolutely NOTHING to do with how we play the games, but entirely with what makes them easier and more cost effective to make--for instance, I don't think that Bioware actually expected players to need (or even want) them to make Dragon Age II with only a handful of caves (which they recycle constantly), but by reusing variations of the same cave as many times as they did, they may have cut thousands of dollars and months of development time off of the game's overhead costs.

It's not a matter of accessibility or marketing to one fan base or another, it's just business.

 

[bushwhacker2k]

As the number of people who play videogames has grown, developers got the cash to make ever more expensive games. But that means they have to sell more copies, which means they need wider appeal, which means they can't aim at small markets like people who like complicated leveling systems and inventory management.

Pre-CISE-ly.

This is why I can't target any single group, because every group partially responsible for games becoming less innovative and more simple is justified in some way.

I really do hope gaming becomes more universal, then we can all go back to trying to make things interesting as opposed to accessible. I don't dislike games being accessible for the masses, but I don't want innovative games that aren't super player-friendly to suffer for it.

 

[draythefingerless]

Also, most of the more complex fights in Half Life 2, were half-scripted, aka, you reached a certain part, game would tell enemies to go here or go there.

The single player campaign is a bad place to judge HL2's AI due to it's linear structure and scripted fights. It's better to try it out in Gmod.
Other cases of the out flanking was just them looking for cover. There was no suppression fire in Half Life. Only plain regular "imma kill you" fire. Kinda hard to have suppression fire if there is no squad/army/battalion to suppress... Half Life is a great game, but dont make it to be more than it is.

HL1 Marines couldn't fire when they moved. The other marines used to lay down fire to support the ones outflanking you.[/quote]

i misstyped, i meant Half Lifes AI. Not Half Life 2s. Even then, saying The single player is a bad place to test it isnt really a supporting argument. :/

And thats pretty lame...they didnt fire to support the ones outflanking you, they fired cause they were trying to kill you. I assure you this happens by nature of the game, not by intent of the AI. Some are moving while some are shooting. If they all decide to move at the same time, no one is shooting you. In fact that happens when you have fewer enemies, or when they are entering an area.

 

[beema]

Yes yes and more yes. Excellent little article.
I think as humans we are always looking for some other group of people to blame for our problems. It exists in every facet of society and every period of history.
It's just a shame we waste all this angry energy on eachother when we could be using the energy to make things better in some way.

Feel this picture is appropriate:

LOL
that's awesome man (and yes very appropriate). Where is it from?

 

[pandasaw]

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...

While that's obviously for comic effect, I would have to say that the current design of FPS maps are more linear but they provide more ways to approach a situation. With the old DOOM maps, as others have said, you could only enter a room with a key that was behind another room that needed another key, so you had to go in precise order and know exactly where and when to shoot (as you can do with your eyes closed ). Current FPS maps (at least the good ones) offer more variety in how your shoot something, at least.

Linnearity is not always a bad thing. Saw this video on the same subject at G4tv and I agree with it 100%.
http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/711199/crysis-2-linear-and-loving-it-sesslers-soapbox/

 

[Scars Unseen]

I don't like the word "dumbing down" as that assumes that everyone has just gotten stupider (I misspelled stupider when I typed it...), and I guess I have more faith in humanity than that. Most games are becoming more "simplified", and an unfortunate result of that can be "dumbing" or watering down the whole experience. I think developers just need to trust their audience more.

I think a prime example of "oversimplification" for me was the change between Mass Effect 1 and 2. The first one I thought was great, even if it did have some gameplay issues (and even if the Mako was bouncy as fuck). The second one, however, I think BioWare overreacted to the complaints and drastically simplified, though not quite watered down, the overall experience.

In Mass Effect 1, I never really noticed that I was unloading shot after shot, and it felt varied and epic in a sense. In Mass Effect 2 I noticed that all I was doing was unloading clip after clip after clip, and that's all I felt I was doing in fight after fight, with nothing to break up the monotony. That, I think, is oversimplification, and it's dangerous when a developer doesn't give their audience enough credit to assume that they can't manage a simple inventory or pilot a helicopter.

A couple of things:

1) I hope that the irony of using "stupider" in a post decrying the use of the phrase "dumbing down" is not lost on you.

2) If "dumbing down" implies that the audience is dumb, is it really any better to imply that the audience is simple? (hint: irrelevant since neither "dumbed down" nor "simplified" are describing the user)

 

[Ericb]

Feel this picture is appropriate:

Spoiler

Oh, it's more then appropriate, it's the perfect visual analogy.

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...

The first one is sad, by far.

The second, not at all as it was and is a stimulating level design.

I don't dislike games being accessible for the masses, but I don't want innovative games that aren't super player-friendly to suffer for it.

This is very much my take on it and precisely why it is terrible that there so many self-titled "hardcore gamers" who immediately shun attempts to step out of the current game design box.

 

[Jumplion]

1) I hope that the irony of using "stupider" in a post decrying the use of the phrase "dumbing down" is not lost on you.

I misspelled "stupider" the first time around...

2) If "dumbing down" implies that the audience is dumb, is it really any better to imply that the audience is simple? (hint: irrelevant since neither "dumbed down" nor "simplified" are describing the user)

"Dumbing down" implies that the user is stupid or too dumb to know what to do.
"Simplifying", while it can be seen as the same thing, I think it's more streamlining and making the game approachable. You can still have a streamlined, approachable game that has depth and complexity to it, it's just pretty difficult.

 

[Callate]

All right, let's take System Shock 2 for a second. Because quite frankly, if there's one thing that pisses me off, it's the ongoing critical worship of that "great under-appreciated work of genius" that was SS2..

Great atmosphere? Sure. Intriguing and innovative blending of genres? Absolutely. Some nicely-conceived set-pieces? Definitely. Memorably fiendish nemeses? Certainly.

But it wasn't just "hard". It was home to some incredibly bad design decisions. Decisions that a better-constructed and playtested game would have sanded off. Decisions that made it both far worse and far less accessible than it needed to be.

A few examples:

Increasing the protaganist's agility caused your movement speed to increase; this increased movement speed meant you could hurt yourself running into a railing. Because nothing says "agile" like a hero who breaks his nose running into a wall.

If the protaganist is poisoned, they keep taking damage until you use an antidote or die. At least one segment of the game is happy to drop you into an area right on top of things that can poison you with a single hit.

Opening crates involves playing an incredibly dull little game (one which makes Bioshock's "Pipe Dream"-alike look like a thrill ride) that costs the player "money" on every attempt. There's no way to know if the contents of the box are worth that cost. The player plays this game about a thousand times.

Several of the game's missions require retracing one's steps. Those steps are populated by infinitely respawning enemies, many of which use firearms. Despite this, chances of getting either a usable weapon or a single bullet from any of these enemies is minuscule.

The "big bad" at one point reveals that she is capable of retracting the "experience points" she's been issuing to you. This never comes up again.

Both of your major enemies want you on their side. Actually joining forces with either is not an actual option, which makes the story segments spent on these notions something of a waste of time.

The instruction manual raves about how important it was to the designers that psionic powers not be "just another gun". Then they made ammunition and weapons so scarce that the player would often be slitting their own throat to use those powers any other way, especially given the skill points and resources they had to give up to acquire and use those powers.

...I could go on...

In summation, System Shock 2 is kind of like an intricately carved wooden marble maze that may give you splinters when you pick it up and has the occasional propensity to drop your marble into a crevice from which it can't be retrieved. Bioshock is like a simpler maze made out of smoothed glass- it will never cut you, it will never lose your marble, you can see the work that went into it from every angle but at the same time it's never going to be as difficult because the end is always in sight. They're different experiences, but I spit at the idea that SS2's is intrinsically superior.

To bring this back into the main thrust of discussion: I absolutely agree that we should continue to demand complex and fulfilling experiences from games, and "call out" designs that take beloved genres and franchises and make them simpleminded for the sake of making them accessible.

But we shouldn't automatically assume that every time a corner is rounded off, it's to a game's detriment. There have been some improvements made to the games we love as well. A modern FPS map may be a lot less obviously complex than one from Doom seventeen-plus years ago, but I don't think anyone is clamoring to return to maps that were, despite some trickery to seem otherwise, two dimensional. Games like Half-Life slowed the action down and showed that the genre didn't have to author nothing but simpleminded shoot-em-ups. The rebirth of the whole adventure genre has come along with some recognition that hunting for one pixel or selecting one of seven different kinds of screwdriver from a ridiculously huge inventory was never what attracted people to those games.

The fanboy's glass is always going to be half empty, and I say that fully aware that I have my own fanboy-ish blind spots. But of all people, game players at the bleeding edge of technology should have some perspective on how silly it can be to blindly cling to traditions.

 

[Scars Unseen]

1) I hope that the irony of using "stupider" in a post decrying the use of the phrase "dumbing down" is not lost on you.

I misspelled "stupider" the first time around...

Ah. I see that it is, then. Never mind.

2) If "dumbing down" implies that the audience is dumb, is it really any better to imply that the audience is simple? (hint: irrelevant since neither "dumbed down" nor "simplified" are describing the user)

"Dumbing down" implies that the user is stupid or too dumb to know what to do.
"Simplifying", while it can be seen as the same thing, I think it's more streamlining and making the game approachable. You can still have a streamlined, approachable game that has depth and complexity to it, it's just pretty difficult.

I really don't see how one term is better than the other. If you are looking for a word to describe the effect, either works. If you are trying to use the phrase to imply something about the audience, then they fail in equal measure. If you are wanting to invent a term that works for both, perhaps "mainstreaming" would be a better choice.

 

[Irridium]

LOL
that's awesome man (and yes very appropriate). Where is it from?

Found it while browsing Halolz.com.

Its what I do when I'm bored.

 

[panosbouk]

The argument about hard modes isn't valid at all. Games are mend to be played on normal mode. This is how they should be judged. Never talked about how the game works on easier mode but suddenly we came at a point saying if you want the full game play on hard.

I don't agree that games evolution made them easier. They became easier for the developers.

On FPS games health restore as mentioned as well on Extra Credits here on escapist, makes the designers to work freely on what they will put for your next encounter. They don't have to take in consideration factors as your health bar, armor bar etc, so they can put a balanced encounter on the next room.

On RPGs now I encountered the worse scenario. Still not a simplicity to the game "evolution" in general but a design choice. Dragon Age 2 gives you a total party of 4 to control. But you can only use the gear you find (chest, boot, gloves), on your main character. You can upgrade them from shops but they get a fixed upgrade for the specific char. I don't believe in that case even the more "casual" player find it appealing.

The simplicity that overcomes games now takes away the mechanics that made them the medium that is today. Instead going forward as an independent medium goes the wrong way and soon we will see nomination in the Oscars. And yes this is bad because games are not movies although they going that way.

I would like to close with this. I remember the game Sevenrace, an action RPG, that it's combat mechanic was dodge, block, and for attacks you combined keys to make the moves, now I press a single button and see stuff happens on my screen.For me that's not moving forward but even more backwards.

 

[Azaraxzealot]

games being easy will never make them less enjoyable to me. i go for the spectacle and story, not for the challenge

if i wanted a challenge i'd play starcraft in korea.

i want to have fun, and fun is not training myself with endless hours of videogames so that i can "enjoy" them when they're fucking ridiculously hard

 

[Irridium]

*Edit*

Actually, here is a video.

I really hope everything isn't highlighted in the final game. Otherwise it completely defeats the purpose of exploration.

You can't find your own way when you highlight everything.

 

[shaderkul]

Playing through DA2, I really am struck dumb by how much they hold your hand these days. They honestly don't let you figure out ANYTHING for yourself anymore, which is a shame.

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.

Exactly. And the way they rate the loot you pick up left me gasping for air in disbelief! You gotta be kidding me...seriously?! " Ooooo...I just picked up two magic staffs and I don't know which one is better, I don't have time to look at the stats and decide, I just wanna kill stuff. Oh, ok. One has three stars and the other has four! Yay!

Seriously.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

The platform wars always muddy the issues. Are FPS games getting simpler? Well obviously because [insert platform here] gamers are drooling idiots who need the experience to be easier!

This is probably happening to make gaming more accessible to the newer generation but why they can't make hard mode hard baffles me. Have different sized maps for the different difficulties! Leave the accessibility factor at easy!

 

[Jumplion]

I really don't see how one term is better than the other. If you are looking for a word to describe the effect, either works. If you are trying to use the phrase to imply something about the audience, then they fail in equal measure. If you are wanting to invent a term that works for both, perhaps "mainstreaming" would be a better choice.

Eh, more semantics on my part. Mainstreaming is an interesting word aswell, could also apply to certain situations.

 

[The3rdEye]

"Old-school PC gamers are always willing to tell you about how shooters used to have management of multiple resources - armor, health, and ammunition for ten weapons. Now we have a single "life" gauge that fills up on its own, and three weapons. Combat used to take place on sprawling levels with branching paths and multiple routes. Now they have linear railroad paths. The old menagerie of monsters has been replaced with "solider with gun A" and "soldier with gun B."

Even among console fans, there is blame to be spread around. PS3 fans sneer at the frat-boy Halo demographic of Xbox players. Xbox owners laugh at the dumb jocks who bought a PlayStation and then buy the same Madden and Tiger Woods games, over and over, every year. Both sides are filled with burning contempt for the giggling, clueless, inept Wii players and their affinity for heaps of shovelware.

It's possible that within every lie is a kernel of truth but all the same why repeat this sort of thing? How do we move past it if you keep putting it in front of us? At the same time this is all coming from someone who apparently grown up with games, which in itself can be problematic. No matter how awesome a game is, no matter how great the experience is, it's never going to your first. You're not going to remember the crappy controls, the terrible art, the poor scripting, you just remember the first time X happened and blew your mind.

Games as a whole aren't getting "dumber", the industry is getting scared as hell and neurotic. There is a HUGE amount of momentum driving things forward; technology, the maturation of the 1st gen console gamers with their increased disposable income, the possibility of tackling subjects and stories once thought to be material solely for books and movies and of course the money. The prospect of taking a leap and either allowing themselves to be hard on the player or to present the player with something that they don't like and therefore losing a sale over it is terrifying to them as a business. To compound the problem, we the consumer further complicate things with our random acts of rage from fans and 'haters' alike and most of all we keep putting the blame on everyone but ourselves.

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. Stop saying that a game is "bad" or "broken" simply because you didn't enjoy it. [footnote]I have seen titles for numerous DA2 threads, but have not read a single one because despite what others dislike about the game, and despite what I myself dislike about the game, I still enjoy it. I'm not going to call NFS:HP a "poorly designed game" because the actual Hot Pursuit events only comprised 1/4 of the content, and I won't say FM:E was "broken" because I never did get my pre-order content. I WILL call them "insanely fast-paced and cathartic after a day in rush hour traffic, although rather short in my favorite event" and "A nice way to tide me over until AC5", respectively.[/footnote]Instead of filling forums with vitriol and outbursts of "That's not canon!" and "What the hell!? Are you stupid?!", where are the words of encouragement? What reason does the industry have to relax and allow itself to be innovative when the people with the mic are saying things like this:

I'm going to continue to rail against trends that make the hobby less fun for me.

I think the best approach is for games to offer enough flexibility to appeal to people of different tastes