Please read the article and share thoughts. (I found it at random, so I know as much about it as anybody who reads it)
Are gamers skills in decline or is it society as a whole? Do most people not want to be challenged anymore, but would rather simply be entertained? Do developers feel it is too risky to make their game quite challenging, living in constant fear that they might âfrustrateâ the player?
I think it is because gamers are getting younger and younger. I mean back when mario bros got release on the gameboy most gamers where 16-18+ and lets be honest the older you are the better you are at games or should i say the better you can handle a diffecult level without a mental breakdown. And since nowdays alot of kids own PS4 Xbox1 or a PC they form a big part of the market. And if they dont like to play diffecult games, game developers wont make diffecult games because then the biggest part of the potential buyers wont like it because its to diffecult. Atleast this is my opinion.
The thing is the original super mario bros was shit in terms of conveyance. How are you even supposed to know it was a mushroom from the sprite, much less figure out what the mushroom is even supposed to do. How do you learn that a goomba is harmful and the way you fight them is by landing on them. Kids in the eighties learned how to play SMB either through the manual or another reference, or by slamming their head into a wall and gleaning whatever information they could out of the system piece by piece.
As much as the quote from Iwata assumes itâs because of difficultly, I would say itâs just as likely that the play-testers werenât accustomed to the logic (i.e. they werenât taking LSD) and werenât able to make sense of the game.
I remember buying Total Annihilation (on CD) and spending the first day just reading through the included guide/manual. I spent a lot of time referencing it until I knew every command by heart. And back then I was an impatient kid just like all the rest.
Things are just different today. Then we only had a few games, I (at least) didnât have the internet to get help, and the alternative was going outside and playing in a tree. It wasnât even that I was highly motivated, it was there there was no alternative. It was either real life or finish this level in Castle of Illusions. No matter how many tries it took Illusions was still more interesting than that tree.
Today we are drowning in alternatives, walkthroughs are just a click away, and we have all been trained in what to expect from a good game.
However if a game captures a kids imagination they will still invest the time to learn how to play it. When one of my kids was five he had only explored the world of Minecraft. Through mods & watching youtube vidoes he learned about portal. After a few months he worked it up in his mind that he just had to play it. When he turned six I gave it to him. The first night he found it so hard that he barely made any progress and cried form the disappointment. But I left him with it and to everyones surprise after a month or so he finished it solo and now designs his own levels.
So i donât think all is lost. But I do think things are different - and hopefully for the better.
And if I had tried to play Call of Duty when I was playing SMB, I wouldnât have been able to make it past level 1.
I think âdifficultyâ is a difficult trend to spot, because of a lot of variables, like experience with similar games, that make it hard to quantify a gameâs difficulty. If youâve never played an RTS, Starcraft will be very difficult. If youâve been playing RTSâs since Dune, Starcraft would be trivial.
I have definitely noticed gamers are much less skilled today than in the past. When I made my little Christmas game recently I was amazed at how so many people found the game so difficult. Yet at the same time when I had some people who are âold schoolâ gamers (just like me) play it they either made it to level 7 or 8 on their first play or even won the game. That is because I kept making it easier and easier based on people saying it is so hard.
I donât get it really. lol When I a was kid playing games it was very common to spend weeks even months playing a game trying to beat it. Of course, many games you could not even win but we counted making the score flip out or reset to 0 as âwinningâ. We fully expected to spend our time to learn the game environment. To test what we could and could not do. To actually work out strategies to use to be successful at the game. That was a very big part of the game experience! We certainly never expected the game to hold our hand and tell us âyou can move by pressing the left or right arrow keys. Try moving now.â ⌠âoh no there is a wall in your way. Fortunately you can jump by pressing the space bar. Try it for yourselfâ. Honestly I donât think there can be any doubt about how âdumbed downâ games have become.
I think itâs too broad to say games are dumbed down. Theres always going to be a SMB, vvvvv, Super Hexagon, etc.
Edit* Oh, and Hotline Miami. I recently played that though and I found it extremely fun, even though I rarely play violent games these days. Half of the fun was from it being so unforgiving, but getting you straight back into the action with minimal interruption. You really got to master those levels.
Perhaps but these days I think it is seen as actually being good game design to do things like âyou can move by pressing the left or right arrow keys. Try moving now.â ⌠âoh no there is a wall in your way. Fortunately you can jump by pressing the space bar. Try it for yourselfâ. Or providing other methods of hand-holding providing tips and so forth anything to save the player from having to think and work out problems and explore. To me that is games being âdumbed downâ. I agree it can go too far the other way too. But for people these days to actually think that SMB having hidden blocks that could only be found by adventurous players jumping around was bad design I just think they are missing the point. Itâs encouraging and rewarding players to explore the game world. Of course, we all view things differently. To me that kind of thing is cool. I want to be able to figure things out for myself. To explore and find things. To not have a game treat me like I am a complete idiot.
Absolutely agree wholeheartedly. Iâm not sure if itâs a societal trend as well, but gamers (and consequently games) have become dumber and dumber continuously for many years, now. I was given a Nintendo at age 4 and had no instruction, yet I recall finishing the entire game wihout major roadblocks due to anything but lack of skill which I then practiced until I could win. Same thing with he original Zelda! Nowadays gamers seem to think they should just win no matter what they do, just for playing. And if the game doesnât reward them for messing up with flashy achievement unlocks, it sucks. Now, Iâm not saying one hundred percent of gamers are like that, but it seems to have to become a very vast majority.
This is especially and hilariously apparent in mmorpg pvp and top tier raiding, for example, where if you then go PUG a run you witness the true horror of just how clueless the players often are there.
/rant.
Oh, and just to add, to the person saying gamers are younger than ever, I have read statistics stating the opposite, that the average age is getting higher in fact (not that I think age has much to do with this, bar a toddler attempting to play).
PUG runs are indeed hilarious, but honestly - what is the alternative?
From the linked article
Blizzard (Nintendo, et al) have to give them something if they expect them to pony up $15 per month. Or do they put a âno scrubsâ sticker on their box and lose the income? Thatâs corporate suicide. The reality is that catering for âfilthy casualsâ is now the norm. They are the majority, and to be competitive you have to appease them. Thatâs never going to change. And I donât see anything wrong with it.
But the long tail is still there, and the hardcore gamers will still get their games. They wonât be the majority, but why should that matter? You still get to play Dark Souls, so donât worry that someone else is having fun facerolling some cutscene bloated FPS.
I would be willing to bet if you ever did any focus/play testing, you would have a very different opinion of what dumbing down is. Itâs easy to assume that if you locked the player in a room, it wouldnât take long to figure out that they need to pick up the stick, equip it, get it lit by the fire, and use it to burn off what is in the way. Shouldnât take more than five minutesâŚ
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3 hours laterâŚ
Oh, thank god he finally picked up the stick. Now all he has to do is open the equip⌠Heâs never opened the equipment menu once and thereâs nothing to tell him what button itâs bound to. Oh godâŚ
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7 hours laterâŚ
Sweet jesus, come on baby. Just get that stick over to the fire, and⌠No, you gotta turn a little⌠There, now, just, hold, no, just. WAIT, no donât drop⌠Heh, heh, heh. It clipped through the ground. Ha, ha. Iâm gonna kill him. Iâm gonna FUCKING HANG THAT LITTLE SHIT WITH A CONTROLLER CABLE. IâM SENDING HIM TO HELL WHERE ALL HEâLL BE ABLE TO PLAY IS SIMONâS QUEST UNTIL HE GROWS A PAIRâŚ
Thatâs funny. I see what you are saying. Certainly I wouldnât hide the controls. The interface needs to be clear. Still there is a difference between showing a screen that lists the controls or even allows players to configure the controls and stopping them every few seconds with a live tutorial / tip how to move, how to jump. It is just hard to imagine that people would not realize if they are playing a computer game for example to use the arrow keys or wasd to move. Or press keys to figure out which ones. When I start any game I press every key just to see what it does if anything. And the other things ⌠I guess I just wonder how is it that we figured out what to do, how to do it and even when to do it without youtube videos or the Internet at all for that matter? Through trial and error mainly. At least I played many games that way. I think there is room for improvement in the old games for sure. But still there just seems to be such a huge difference in abilities, perseverance or something else. Not sure exactly what but there is definitely something different with the modern gamers it seems. Not all of course. I am sure there are many who figure thungs out instead of giving up in 60 seconds never to play again or heading to the Internet looking for walkthroughs.
Iâve played a lot of games that are difficult without being fun. Any recent game that is âhardâ usually is hard by limiting your resources. Itâs being overdone and it isnât really fun to want to manage the 1 clip of ammo you get per level to try and figure out which enemies you can and cannot take down.
Itâs not like xbox live isnât full of twelve year-olds playing multiplayer though. The landscape of gaming has radically changed in the last twenty years. The outlet for skilled play isnât typically in singleplayer anymore where the emphasis is much more likely on the story.
Something to consider though is why and how these games were difficult in the first place. Almost all of the old games had completely self serving reasons for being difficult, usually either to pad the length or to keep on dropping quarters in.
Youâre still making assumptions about the game, and complaining that itâs hand-holding when it makes no assumption about what the player assumes. Modern games rarely try to betray the collective game sensibility, but no one would want to actively exclude people just because they arenât chimed in.
Just binge on a bunch of sub-par n64 games and youâll probably agree much more modern design practices⌠assuming you donât go insane. Bit of an occupational hazard though.
Games have gotten easier, partly because theyâve become more social, and more casual, and more mobile, all of which contributes to trying to make them âfriendlierâ and âmore accessibleâ and less likely to be dumped after 1 minute (so as to make money). This does usually erode âdifficult challenges of skillâ etc which were more typical of retro games. But some people are still making difficult games ⌠e.g. super meatboy? various shootemups? The shootemup Iâm making is difficult - itâs meant to be a challenge, not easy.
I am just trying to understand why the games are becoming so much easier. I have an NES and Genesis and still play the games as well as retro games on the computer. There is no doubt there have been some good improvements in game design over the years. But still I am trying to understand why are the games these days made to be so much simpler and guiding the player along so much. Maybe it is just to try to appeal to more people? Or do gamers truly need to be told things like âyou can moveâ, âyou can jumpâ?
When you look at indie game devs that are making great games that are getting widespread appreciation, itâs not for extremely easy games that hold your hand. Consider:
Minecraft: Many people cannot last a single night the first play. There are many things to learn and they are not shown to you immediately. You are expected to experiment and learn the environment, thatâs part of the enjoyment.
Dwarf Fortress: Iâve never played this game. But itâs slogan, at least in my impression, is âdying is funâ.
Super Meat Boy: Platform game where most attempts result in you being turned to ground beef.
Castle Crashers: Just play a solo game, no friends to help. Enjoy death early and enjoy it often!
These are just a couple of games, but I just read here that vvvvvv is difficult. I donât believe for a second that everybody wants easier and easier games. Sure, maybe on mobile and browser based platforms thereâs a large market for that. But for a game youâre going to sit down with for a while and really explore, and especially for a game that requires you to hold a joypad in your hands, why would you want it to be so easy that you figure everything out in a couple of hours and then go âbooringâ?
I think thereâs a market for very challenging games, but interestingly enough I think most devs would have a rough go of making a challenging, but fair game that is âeasy to play, difficult to masterâ. I believe I know everything there is to know to make this type of challenging game and even as I work on one, I still find myself scratching my head at times, wondering what it needs to be that much cooler. Each thing I discover that adds feels like a monumental achievement.
Then consider, itâs not just that these types of games (challenging but fair, the right balance) are difficult to produce (they are) but they also take time to tweak and improve, contrast that with a touch game that you set out to create in 8-11 days that relies solely on âaddictingâ gameplay elements like short feedback loops. Itâs clear why most people go with the latter.
So, thatâs why I think games are getting easier: Itâs hard to make hard games that donât push people away.
The old Marios use holding down the jump button to jump higher, this isnât used hardly at all in modern games(perhaps Meat boy is an exception) people are not used to that and thus suck. Iâd like to see some people play Donkey Kong and see if they fair better( As Marios jump is always the same)
The new Castle of Illusion does it, probably the original did too but I cannot remember, and so does Rayman.
The main motivating factors seem to be speed runs (and in rayman origins case, specially designed timed levels to unlock the skull teeth), i.e. the levels have a ârhythmâ to them for an additional layer of replayability and fun.
Most casual players arenât coming back to speedrun master the levels to collect all/hidden gems to unlock every last achievement. And in raymans origins case IIRC, those skull teeth levels were optional. So the press to hold jump mechanic was also largely optional.