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As someone who has been intellectually involved in the gaming industry, what is your take on the current evolution in the gaming world where games cater to console limitations and casual gaming?
I think it's a good thing. This is an industry that has been growing for years, but has often run up against a certain ceiling. Have a look at something like a PlayStation 2 controller and then something like a Wii Remote. Which one is less intimidating to someone who isn't already a gamer? It made for a wide range of software on the latter platform that wasn't meant for you or me, but the install base for Nintendo's Wii console is astonishingly large nonetheless, and millions of games like Just Dance have been sold.
Most of the arguments against this seem to imply that this shift takes games away from the existing games buying public, but I don't think it does. I think this brings more people into gaming who were either never here before or haven't been for a very long time, and some of them will want something deeper and more complex. Another argument I see is that existing games are suddenly much easier, and I refute that as well. Using another Wii game as an example, look at New Super Mario Bros Wii. That game featured SuperGuide, which let you effectively skip levels if you wanted to. One is not forced to use SuperGuide, so it is an added feature. Overall, games have *more* options in them now, not less.
As to games in general becoming easier over the years, I would argue that they are instead becoming
less cheap. My favorite video game franchise is Castlevania. I have played every game in the series. The first Castlevania game on NES was very hard, not because the enemies were strong or fast or your weapons were weak, but because the controls and other design choices made memorization, instead of raw skill, the requirement for players. Nowadays, game design has been refined to where the controls are better, and as a result, games seem easier.
Playing classic games like 7th guest or adventure games from sierra/lucasarts (like quest for glory and indiana jones: fate of atlantis) could mean you'd be stuck on a part for a long time, trying to figure out how to get further. You did not get hints, you were not always pointed in the right direction. You need to really focus on trying to find the solution. The difficulty of the games kept you involved and the reward for getting further after being stuck for some time was mostly psychological, but damn was it awesome when you figured something new out!
I agree, but as I said above, these things are usually optional. And there are still games made with such old style sensibilities... they just don't sell as well, because it's not fun to be stuck in a game without making progress. There are many more games available at once today that there were back then, and I think most gamers do not like feeling frustrated, whether they grew up on that at all. The games that balance challenge and reward properly are the ones that feel addictive. I grew up on games like Mega Man and Castlevania, which were all about memorization and, to varying levels, rock-scissors-paper weapon concepts.
Games these days? Take Skyrim for example (since it is considered a very well made 'RPG'). Accept a quest to get an item, walk towards a mark on your map, enter a dungeon, follow the corridors to the end of the dungeon, pick up item, tada, next part of the storyline. There is no challenge or difficulty, the few puzzles in Skyrim (like the turning stones) are very easy to figure out. The psychological reward for exploring and advancing in games of today is quite minimal. Starting to look more like reading a book instead of interacting with a world.
I haven't played Skyrim, but I agree that games have more handholding than they did. I think many gamers demand more content and better graphics in games for less money, and I read somewhere not long ago that most people don't finish the video games they play. Games cost a lot more to make than they used to, and people are paying less for them, when adjusting for inflation. That kind of thing leads to sacrifice in design, and that means more guided and narrow gameplay designs. There are exceptions of course, where games like Torchlight have randomly generated areas and enemies that emit fountains of treasure to keep you plugging along, but the blockbusters are things like Skyrim.
And don't get me started on MMO's. I think WoW was on the right course with classic WoW as a pioneer, but every expansion it got a little worse instead of better. Grind rewards most effeciently. Challenge? Quests are super simple. Instances? Unless you group with people making mistakes it was simple. End game raiding? Muah, in classic where most stuff would kill you in one hit and everyone entered the raiding scene with UBRS blues, it was challenging. But that's no longer the case. It's easy to aquire epics.
I've watched others play WOW but I haven't played it myself. I don't do subscription gaming.
What is the challenge in games these days?
If you want a game that will kick your ass at every turn, play Diablo III and head on up to Inferno difficulty. If you're really crazy, make a hardcore character, and deal with knowing that you only get a single life. Demon's Souls is supposed to be quite challenging as well. The hard games are still around, and I would argue that there are more of them than there were, just by the fact that the industry is so much larger than it was. They may make up a smaller percentage of games now though.
And also, what happened to my favorite non-linear RPG genre turning all linear-ish. (Compared to games like fallout and arcanum)
That does bother me. I was excited to see more random stuff in Diablo III than in Diablo II (at least in terms of the quests) but I still feel irritated at how few of the dungeons seem to be randomly generated. Even Pikmin 2 had randomly generated dungeons.
PS, most important question: Do you know any games that I might like based on above post?
I guess the ones I mentioned here work.
