fsfsfsfsfsfsf wrote...
Smart gamers understand this absolutely perfectly. The understanding is that gaming companies are now aiming squarely at this average Joe portion of society. Games that are too easy or too difficult, too dumb, or too clever, will not sell well, because they will only be suited to statistically smaller groups of society. What most companies want, is to aim right in the middle. This is the mainstream mass market, and this is why 'average' media aimed at this portion of society sells so well. With books there is Harry Potter, with movies there is Titanic, and it's absolutely no mystery why these things sell so well. They are neither very dumb, nor very clever. They are absolutely average - by design. They are right in the middle, and right in the middle is where the money is. It's where the largest IQ group is, and this is not a coincidence, the largest IQ group by definition... is "average people". Average people consume average entertainment. This shouldn't even be debatable, and it's proven time and time again like I said, with games, movies and books, and even with music, food, tourism and other things too. You make something like Baldur's Gate 2 today, and it just wont sell as well as the alternatives, like say, Oblivion for example.
It's also where the most competition is, since almost all other companies are aiming at that same market segment. You've got pretty large niches on both sides of that segment, with little competition in each.
fsfsfsfsfsfsf wrote...
The large, mainstream audience, wants average games - in terms of difficulty. That's not to say they are dumb and want easy games, but they aren't above average intelligence wanting hard games either. It's a massive number of average people, wanting games that are distinctly average games in terms of challenge. It's for this reason that Oblivion is so basic, and yet so popular.
The reason why there is some outrage out there about the over-simplification and "dumbing down" of gaming, is because early in gaming history, games were more complex. I think this is another fact that can't be denied. Look at games of the 80's and 90's, and you see games like Betrayal at Krondor, Maniac Mansion, Elite, Rainbow Six, etc.
Yes, and learning to master the game mechanics was part of the fun - whereas nowadays some people consider it a hassle.
fsfsfsfsfsfsf wrote...
So anyway, we are a small minority. We used to be the majority... We were "gamers". We were the ones who bought games throughout the 80's and 90's and allowed gaming to grow in to what it is today. We are the ones who grew up appreciating that games were epic interactive visual and visceral challenges, made by people who took pleasure in providing extremely difficult challenges, sometimes even to the point of being overly obtuse and difficult, and us gamers took pleasure in proving our worth by beating these games. We rose to every challenge. Whether that was surviving to the end of Myth Drannor in Eye of The Beholder 2, or finally killing Shodan in System Shock, or saving all of our Lemmings, getting Larry laid, beating Mike Tyson, or saving the world in X-Com, we revelled in being challenged and if it was too hard for us, that just meant that we had to try harder.
In other words, those games had a good learning curve that never really reached a plateau. You could keep on learning and getting better with practice.
fsfsfsfsfsfsf wrote...
The difference back then, is that we didn't need tutorials. ALL games were difficult, so if you found one game too hard (because you were too lazy or too dumb to figure out how to play it well), then you would have nothing to play at all. You were either up for the challenging of gaming, or you weren't. There was no in between. There was no Wii, Need 4 Speed, or anything else. You were going to be challenged no matter what. So we old school gamers were raised on figuring this stuff out for ourselves. Once you've died a thousand times in an RPG, you had learned everything you needed to know. So as games were released, we understood right away what we were meant to do. Today that doesn't happen. The world is a different place now. Today, if the average Joe gamer gets a game that they don't understand, they have no need to figure it out. They prefer to post about how gay it is and then get a different game. These modern gamers also haven't played these brutal old games, and they haven't learned the intricacies of the genres. With driving games, they don't know the importance of a good driving line. With RPG's, they don't know how fire elementals are likely to be immune to fire... With FPS's they don't know the importance of reloading before you burst in to save the hostages. Modern gamers haven't learned these lessons yet, and they will never force themselves to learn through trial and error either.
Because the 'error' in trial and error gets seen as a flaw in the game, rather than a flaw in their chosen strategy.
fsfsfsfsfsfsf wrote...
The video suggests that modern gamers are capable of understanding these kinds of things, they just need to be shown it. There needs to be tutorials to explain these things. Games can still be challenging and complex, but if the player knows what and how to approach it, then they will likely lap up the challenge rather than criticise it for being too hard. That is the perfect solution. Sadly, as the video explains, an easier alternative is to just remove all this stuff... Buy Need 4 Speed 2010 and you don't even need to know about a driving line, your car drives almost like it's on auto pilot. Buy Crysis and you don't need to remember to reload. It's not like the original Rainbow Six where one bullet could kill you and 1 second hesitation could mean a dead hostage and a failed mission. Instead you have a constantly regenerating health bar, and the ability to run away and go invisible any time you want. In Oblivion, you don't need to know about spell immunity, they just took that out, along with interrupts and party interaction etc.
I think at this point, a lot of old school gamers have just given up even trying to fight their case. I see their posts, and it's kind of comforting knowing there are still some out there playing games, but it's sad to see that they know they are defeated. We are the minority now, we've been outnumbered by the masses of Average Joe gamers who demand average games, and we aren't happy about that. Whenever you see someone complaining about dumbing down and simplification, you have to understand that it's our frustration at seeing this devolution of gaming. We know we are fighting a losing battle and that nobody cares about us anymore, but that doesn't mean that we can't express our frustration at you, and that some wont go down without a fight.
A sad state of business, and one of the reasons while I still play old games (from the NES/SNES era) and before, if I can get them to run on my PC. They simply manage to provide more challenge than modern games, in a good way.
Btw, companies can also go wrong the other way. 'Hard' mode on Metroid: Other M is a prime example of that. Simply having the same game as on normal but without any powerups only makes the game frustrating, rather than challenging.
fsfsfsfsfsfsf wrote...
To be fair, it's quite impressive actually. A lot of you gaming companies have absolutely NAILED your target audience now. Long gone are the wild west days of gaming where nobody really knew anything. Now your figures and statistics and sharp eyes on your forums have defined your audience pretty well, presentations are now tailored perfectly to these audiences. With the recent WoW presentation I saw, the guy was just babbling on like a moron, talking about how he is happy, and his team is happy, and then he gets excited and then everyone gets excited. It was tailored perfectly for the typical 13 year old WoW player who gets SUPER EXCIIIIITEDDDDD! at pretty much everything. With Dragon Age 2, the lady hits me with "Press a button and something awesome happens" which is absolutely typical of modern gaming really. Gone are the Baldur's Gate days when you got regularly slaughtered by huge groups of enemies that ganked your healer/spell casters, or a single trap takes out your Ranger or whatever. Nowdays it's all about winning, and looking good doing it. It's all cinematic combat that looks good but involves no real thought, and no skill. Dragon Age was the first phase, and now Dragon Age 2 is phase two of that dumbing down process. We will now have a hotbar full of "buttons that do something awesome, dude", and combat will be little more than just pressing which AwEsOmE auto-pilot manoeuvre you want to perform. It's sad for me to think about all the mindless idiots playing this game and pressing the button, seeing the character leap in to the sky and spin around, and decapitate the enemy, and then they'll say to themselves DUDE! That woz FrEaKiN AWESOME DUDE SERIOUSLY! IM SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS OMG!!! Rather than thinking, "What the hell happened to player input, tactics and decision making?" Amongst other things.
I also noticed the, "Think like a general, fight like a Spartan" thing. Again, you nailed the audience. You've seen the countless super koool dudes on various forums who get all excited watching these flashy CGI trailers and expressing their excitement by shouting SPARTAAAAA!!!1!1 You see that happen often, and I can just picture the little light bulb light up next to the heads of the marketing department, as they realise that they can harness this lame 300/Spartan obsession to sell to these kinds of people. You guys have it sewn up. You'll be a big success and sell a lot, EA's favourite little pet. Dragon Age 2, the McChicken Sandwich of gaming.
Dragon Age wasn't the first phase - DA:O was a very good game, inspired on BG2. Wish I could say the same about DA2, but that's not looking so good thus far.
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) Even Ultima Online is more complex than nearly all the other MMO's out and it was made back in 97.
