Games Are Supposed To Be Fun, Right?

The Game Chair has up an editorial examining the increasing complexity and learning curve that pervade todays games. He examines the reality that, for many people, games are becoming simply unfun. From the article: "As a Gamer, I am amazed and delighted that games have advanced as far as they have. I'm still blown away everytime a new Final Fantasy or Legend of Zelda game comes out, and I look forward to spending hundreds of hours with them exploring all of their intricacies. That being said, the same things that attract me to these games might repel others who are casual gamers or non-Gamers. The importance of the 'pick-up and play' style of games, for me, lies not only in the nostalgia that I feel for them, but also in the importance of having games that are accessible to everyone."

Comments

ignoring new users

[cursion]

As an old user I know this new game is going to be good - I liked the last game in this series. I've just got to learn two new finger twisting button combos.

As a new user I'm not even going to try to learn the 37 finger twisting combos that you use to move. The game looked good, got great reviews, but it's going to get me some credit at the game store next week now.

There's only so many ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

It's really hard to come up with a concept for a pick up and play game. Most titles attempt to refine existing formulas because there's so little left. For example, Will Wright's Spore is designed to be pick up and play, and look at the huge amount of technology required to introduce it. Basically, the low hanging fruit are already taken.

I'll say!

[furry_marmot]

My first game on my PS/2 (late bloomer a few years ago) was GTA3. There was a learning curve, and then I had many hours of fun with it. GTA Vice City was larger, harder, had some annoying bugs, and I never did finish it. It just got to be a task to figure out what to do next. My wife bought me GTA San Andreas for Christmas, and I'm still barely into it. I originally thought the hugeness of the game would be great, but it's just boring. Get an assignment, drive for five minutes, blow it, start again. That's not fun. It's a huge waste of time, while hoping some fun happens eventually, when you're not eating, working out, and trying to earn respect points.

It reminds me of when I tried my wife's copy of The Sims once. I friggin' live my life already. I don't have time to help a bunch of digital homunculi work, sleep, pay bills, and indulge their neuroses. Despite the popularity of it, I lasted three days with it and was done forever.

My favorite PS/2 game in the past year was Simpson's Hit & Run. Just silly mindless fun. I'm old (old enough anyway) and I like to play games to unwind a bit, not to get wound up. If I want to engage my mind in something deep and complex, I look for a game of Go or a good book.

Re:Two Words

[Moraelin]

While he indeed picked on the difficulty, as opposed to the learning curve that was the real topic, I think he does have a point, though. IMHO:

1. The difficulty can make a lot of people get frustrated and abandon a game even if the learning curve was ok.

2. More importantly and more on topic, difficulty levels can in fact ease the learning curve. A game, let's say an RPG, that a master can beat on Hard by min-maxing their char and knowing the exact best combination of spells, potions and attacks, becomes manageable on "Very Easy" even if you didn't learn all that. Lower the difficulty enough and a newbie can just run around poking things with a wooden sword, and not worry (or even bother knowing) that he was really supposed to use some complicated combination of spells, skills and special equipment there.

The problem is that most of the industry can't seem to get their head out of their ass^H^H^H mentality that "waah, but a challenge is all we can offer the players! without a challenge a game is nothing!"

Well, no, they need to get over it. Something can be entertaining without requiring more skill than operating a remote control. See the hordes of people who find it perfectly entertaining to watch football on TV or a movie on DVD without needing to learn arcane button combinations or overcome heroic challenges.

_The_ most sold PC game ever was The Sims. Funny thing is: it's a game with _zero_ challenge. You have to actively try hard to "lose" the game. Otherwise you could pretty much do what you wanted, take it at your own pace (e.g., if you wanted to give a party instead of making Bob Newbie learn for a promotion, go ahead and do just that) and the negative consequences would range between non-existent and mild/short-term.

Think of other games that sold well. Diablo? It was really one of the least challenging games of that era, and you could win pretty much no matter how you built your character. Max Payne? If you died often enough, the game basically automatically put you in God mode.

On consoles, you know what sells remarkably well? "Cheat" programs like GameShark, Xploder or such. A helluva lot of people are willing to even fork over cash to be spared from a challenge they don't want.

But, no, most game designers are still locked in a mentality that "nooo, it must be challenging and difficult!" So even when they do offer a difficulty setting, they just have to over-balance it to discourage people from using it.

For example half the RPGs actually get it backwards: it's actually _more_ difficult to finish the game on the "very easy" setting. Because they also cut your XP in half, so by the end of the game you're 2-3 levels lower than the enemies, your status effect spells (e.g., "turn undead") don't stick, your warrior can't actually hit the enemies (3 points of THAC0 can make a helluva lot of difference), etc.

Congrats, they've just kicked someone in the nuts when that someone basically chose "I'm a newbie, I don't want a challenge." Is that stupid, or what?

And again, this affects the learning curve too. Because that kind of game starts easier, but becomes harder than normal by the end, the learning curve actually becomes more abrupt in that mode. Someone who played on "very easy" will have to do _much_ more advanced tricks to be able to survive by the end, and will have to learn them very very fast.