Are casual gamers ruining gaming?

[ThisTypeofThinking]

Yes. See: MW2.

 

[zidine100]

Yes and no, obviously. Most developers won't cater to you as much, but there's always, always some out there that will. Speaking of which, you'd enjoy Ikaruga. Let me know when you S+ rank every chapter on one credit, and I think they might be porting Radiant Silvergun to XBLA.

id recomend DoDonPachi Dai Ou Jou , Mushihime-sama Futari, DeathSmiles and radioZonde if were going down for a really chalanging shmup route here. (would list more but, that would derail this topic a bit to much.)

anyway more on topic, No gaming did not start out to cater for what people define hardcore gaming, it was designed for people to have fun, (can you really call pong a hardcore game?) if people are still having fun then it is not ruined and is not being ruined.

 

[NickCaligo42]

We've all seen the influx of developers changing games to make them easier to play, sacrificing depth so that the majority of gamers don't get lost or confused.

They're not sacrificing depth, they just don't understand games well enough to actually create real depth. The majority of designers from around the 80's and 90's and earlier were people who already designed board and tabletop games and decided to translate their skills to digital games. The majority of designers right now are generation X-ers who just mucked around with the UT level editor in college and ended up lucking into their jobs and staying there since it was a sweet gig. They get distracted by the superficial aspects of games (IE: "immersion" and the whole idea of basically being a movie that you can explore) and forget where they came from, their understanding of the concepts of rules and mechanics being fairly rudimentary and superficial compared with their ability to produce; hence why they tend to glom onto the most successful games of any given genre in recent history and steal big chunks of them rather than create their own games from the ground up. They're not stupid people by any means, they're just flawed human beings.

Is this trend to make games so easy they cease to be fun? I keep thinking of older games that made you figure out where to go rather than just showing you the path (Fable 2). This hobby is getting more mainstream, that's fine, but what happened to actually having a challenge?

I know where you're coming from there, having really loved the Myst games and the feeling of exploring its world and taking notes on all the anthropological crud laying around, but there's a difference between "having a challenge" and "forcing the player to waste time due to useability issues," like not having a mini-map or any indication as to where your next goal is--cutscene-fed, map-indicated, or otherwise. Brutal Legend is the big offender in this case. Ever try playing an RTS without a mini-map or any way of knowing where your troops are? Challenging, yes, but for all the wrong reasons. To be fair, a lot of the games that people cite as "challenging" either boil down to wrote memorization (Contra and Shmup fighters), stiff controls (Castlevania I, II, and III), or just not knowing what the hell is going on or being given clear direction as to the player's goals (Deadly Towers, Phantasy Star II). In the best of cases they find a middle ground between what you speak of and the oldschool method, giving you general direction towards your goals but not going as far as to put an icon on the map.

Many games this year could have been great but they were just way to easy without any way to make them more difficult (Borderlands).

Borderlands is a neat idea, but a strong example of the kind of superficial game design I was talking about earlier. The guns aren't really weapons designed with specific purposes or tactical roles in mind, they're just construct-a-guns that the computer randomly throws together from a spreadsheet of some stuff that the designers thought sounded like cool ideas for guns. You're just as likely to get a rapid-fire shotgun loaded with nukes as you are a revolver-style water pistol with only three shots. They took the most superficial and well-known aspect of Diablo (random reinforcement; better known as loot dropping) and applied it to a game type that it didn't fit with (just shooting), forgetting all the other elements that made Diablo work (the relationship between melee, ranged, and magic play styles and the classes' roles). It's enjoyable for the novelty of having an electric nuke machinegun, but not so much stimulating as distracting. The developers didn't put this together thinking "hey, let's make a game that's not challenging," though, they just don't know as much about designing games as they do about producing and programming them, which is common at this point.

Am I just nostalgic for games that used to have real challenge? Is this an antiquated view to have about the hobby?

It's not antiquated, just misinformed. Casual gamers are not ruining gaming, they're simply consumers buying products, generally with no real concept of what impact they might have on the way developers choose to do things since they aren't actually paying attention. Come on. You think those housewives playing Peggle and Bejeweled and getting on their Wii Fit every afternoon really have an agenda here? Simply put, casual gamers aren't a demographic because, as I say, they don't care; have no preferences one way or another and thus are a futile group to try and appeal to. They don't get on forums like these or pay attention to industry news, would tilt their heads in confusion to hear themselves classified as "casual gamers," (as opposed to gamers who aren't just trying to relax?) and, if they were interested, would probably be downright insulted to hear that Ubisoft is intentionally watering down the Prince of Persia series to appeal to their puny little brains. Otherwise, they'd probably just be more confused about it since they don't own a PS3 or an Xbox 360 in the first place and wouldn't touch Prince of Persia anyway because they don't know what it is.

See why that's not a good demographic to aim for? That describes about 90% of casual gamers. They don't buy Wii Fit and Wii Sports because they're "casual-friendly," they buy them because they're generally appealing and novel products that they'd have bought anyway if the rest of gaming didn't exist. If anyone's really ruining gaming, it's publishers and developers--people in power who mistake this miscellaneous mash-up of consumers for an actual demographic that can be targeted. Luckily, they're starting to wise up--some of them, anyway. It'll be a couple of years yet, I think, before they really get the picture and understand that a ready-made and faithful (if demanding) audience is a lot more reliable than "everyone else."

Personally, I don't believe that your beef is really with challenge so much as senses of pleasure that aren't currently being offered by games. At least, ones you don't think are being offered by games. Unfortunately reviewers these days have a way of making us ignore fairly decent stuff in favor of what satisfies their antiquated scoring criteria. You seem to be especially big on RPGs, exploration, and discovery, from the sound of it. Mind giving me some examples of your favorite games? It'd be a helpful point of reference.

 

[minoes]

I suspect that in the fullness of time (assuming it is accepted as a legitimate medium, and I believe it ultimately will be) gaming will be an artistic media very similar in nature to film. Some features will be blatant cash ins, but society will also understand the potential that the medium has for artistic expression. But if gaming can't get past the word "game" then that potential is unlikely to be accepted and we may never see a real bloom in the game world.

But aren´t video games already following the film model? We have Blockbusters, Direct to Video (Shovelware) and the very few arthouse films/ games. The average moviegoer may like Tarantino, but hardly watches Bergman´s or Trier´s films on their own accord.

[quote/] Any artist needs to understand how to work with their medium if they want their work to be appreciated. A painter who decided to work only in brown "because he liked that color" probably wouldn't sell a lot of paintings. The same concept applies to games, an artist who makes a game in a certain way because that's how they want it to be risks the game being judged as bad by players, and if they do judge it to be bad either the artist will change his ways, or he won't be likely to sell a lot of games in the future.
[/quote]

If artist molded themselves to satisfied the market needs and desires, then they would stop being artist and become designers.

 

[Crossborder]

I was about to say no, but when i think of the changes between Morrowind/Oblivion i don't know...
I just hope TES V will be more like morrowind. Then i can safely reply ''no'' to these threads.

 

[Pegghead]

The casual industry is a whole different market. There are simple games, there are also hard games. It's determining which is which that keeps Yahtzee going.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

No, they are actually going to help the industry, believe it or don't. Every person that sees the game system as this magical device that care about their health by helping them lose weight, educate their kids, and help facilitate family game night will be one less parent that will fall into the Jack Thompson crowd. The industry needs new blood to thrive and the casual gamers of today will become the hardcore gamers of tomorrow. If the industry does not get new people in every once in a while, it will die. Casual gamers are our strongest ally.

As the survivor of the last gaming apocalypse, when the playstation was first released, I can tell you that the same fears you have about these casual gamers were the ones we used to have back then. Many people back then were saying things like:

"A non gaming company is making a game system, and it will attract new people, non gaming people that did not grow up in the hobby like we did? Casual gamers will be attracted to the hobby? This is a bug hunt! Game over man! Game over!"

Well, the only thing that can be said is get over it. The influx of casual gamers means that the industry is thriving.

Listen to this man, he speaks the truth.

Casual gamers are your friends, and will help other people see that your favorite passtime is fun, not bad.

 

[esserius]

Casual gamers give a place for indie gamers to shine. World of Goo, all the tower defense games, castle crashers, etc. They purchase a lot of those five dollar games and God love them for it. But if you want to appeal to someone "ruining" games, you should probably direct your ire towards the designers and developers, since they're the ones who make those decisions.

By the way, try Cho Ren Sha [http://www2.tky.3web.ne.jp/~yosshin/my_works/download.html]

 

[Kpt._Rob]

I suspect that in the fullness of time (assuming it is accepted as a legitimate medium, and I believe it ultimately will be) gaming will be an artistic media very similar in nature to film. Some features will be blatant cash ins, but society will also understand the potential that the medium has for artistic expression. But if gaming can't get past the word "game" then that potential is unlikely to be accepted and we may never see a real bloom in the game world.

But aren´t video games already following the film model? We have Blockbusters, Direct to Video (Shovelware) and the very few arthouse films/ games. The average moviegoer may like Tarantino, but hardly watches Bergman´s or Trier´s films on their own accord.

The issue here though is that film didn't start by pumping out blockbusters, it earned legitimacy as an art form before falling into the Hollywood model. And even with that it still has a hard time, many movie goers (at least here where I live in America) probably doesn't realize the medium's potential for artistic expression, and many who do have stopped looking at film as art as a result of the Hollywood model. Nonetheless, people are capable of seeing a film as art when a good one comes out, the recent District 9 is a good example, but if film had started out with the Hollywood model then the medium probably would have been panned by viewers for the same things it's panned for today. If it were then shunned by the majority of the populace, they would see it only as a juvinile medium for kids who want to see some explosions and tits, and those who saw past that to the potential of film would be the only ones who got the opportunity to enjoy District 9. Instead film began by showing its potential, and then after it was viewed as a legitimate form the Hollywood model arose to exploit that, but even so people do understand its potential and as such they can enjoy its genuine masterpieces.

Let's now examine the history of gaming. Starting with games like pong and building up through SNES, (even the N64/PS1 generation if you want) we have a phase similar to the earliest phase in film, wherein the medium was explored technically. If you see early short films, some of them really are artworks, but many (I would guess the vast majority) are just silly images of people doing things, viewed more as an oddity and a distraction than a legitimate artform. But after the technical aspects of film were well enough understood it did grow into a legitimate story telling medium. This is sort of the stage that gaming is at, the problem though is that gaming isn't reflective of that period in film (where directors were exploring film not as a way to make money, but as an art form), instead it's reflective of the modern period in film, where the purpose of a film more often than not is simply to distract the audience and make money, and where a genuine artwork is the exception not the rule.

But this is a time when gaming really needs to be showing the world what it has to offer. People need to see the real potential of gaming, whether it's in storytelling or visual media or both, aspects exemplified by games like Bioshock or Oblivion or Fallout 3, just to name a few. Unfortunately, this isn't what the world sees. Most of the non-gamers I talk to think of gaming as though it were like the early technical exploration days, where the purpose of a game is to score points. This is a perceptual problem reniforced by the Wii's massive catalogue of bundled minigames, a fact that is quite unfortunate considering that the Wii is the console played by more non-gamers than any other. This means that people have this stereotype of "a game is something where I compete to see who can score the most points" reinforced in their minds. This in mind, it should be no surprise why the average citizen can't understand a game like Grandtheft Auto 4, which actually had a really meaningful story and was a legitimate artwork. The average citizen sees clips of the violence, and assumes that the point of GTA4 is to score points by killing people, when the truth is so far from that, but because they don't understand the artform's legitimacy, they can't see past the model of gaming in their head which has been reinforced by the pervasiveness of casual gaming.

All I'm asserting is that if we want gaming to be accepted as a legitimate artform, then reinforcing this idea of "games are something I do to score points" (a misconception that casual gaming DOES reniforce) is not going to benefit our cause.

[quote/] Any artist needs to understand how to work with their medium if they want their work to be appreciated. A painter who decided to work only in brown "because he liked that color" probably wouldn't sell a lot of paintings. The same concept applies to games, an artist who makes a game in a certain way because that's how they want it to be risks the game being judged as bad by players, and if they do judge it to be bad either the artist will change his ways, or he won't be likely to sell a lot of games in the future.

If artist molded themselves to satisfied the market needs and desires, then they would stop being artist and become designers.[/quote]

Let me restate myself here. There have been a lot more artists on this planet than you or I have ever heard of, or ever will hear of. The vast majority of them have quite literally disappeared into obscurity. Why is this? Because art is selected by society in a way quite similar to Darwinian natural selection for biological organisms. Art which appeals to society survives, and art which does not appeal to society disappears. This is, admitedly, quite unfortunate, especially considering that some peices which might not have appealed years ago, might be considered masterpieces today. However, that is the nature of things in our society. As a general rule, only the work produced by the artists who best reflected the tastes of their times survives. Gaming is no different, doubtless there are thousands of games you never even heard of because they were mediocre at best, but the best of the best are remembered long after their times. Recognizing games as art doesn't mean that developers are suddenly going to go wild with experimentation, rendering games unplayable (not anymore than they do not at least). It does mean, however, that society's opinions of games and of gamers will become more positive, which means that game developers will actually have larger client bases, so they'll have more money at their disposal, meaning that they can explore bigger projects and advance the potential of gaming in ways that they can't right now.

 

[Nwabudike Morgan]

No, but "hardcore" gamers and their "us vs. them" mentality and unwillingness to buy anything that isn't GRITTY AND DARK and about big tough manly men being big, tough and manly sure are.

 

[Thaius]

we didn't want Wii fit at all. When I said we were being given what we wanted, I meant games in general that have and are coming. We are getting more titles than we did last generation, and they are titles the core gaming set seems to want.

You know, now that I am thinking about it, it seems most of my annoyance is aimed at third-party games. Kind of ridiculous, I guess, but the Wii's third-party support is excruciatingly... well, it's just bad. But I suppose Nintendo themselves isn't doing too bad of a job, though I do think it's time they moved on from the "get non-gamers playing" stage (since they've obviously reached that goal) and got on to the "get the new casual gamers into hardcore gaming" stage.

They are making another Pikmin. Miyamoto said it himself in the Nintendo roundtable when the Zelda concept art was shown.

And I'll be damned if a casual player can collect all of the stars and hidden elements to that game. That's what makes it for everyone. I agree that Mario Kart was watered down despite the good online, but this generation is far from watered down and casual friendly in general, NSMBW being an example, among others.

And Mario Kart: Double Dash!! was a good game, but it was also the worst Mario Kart game to be made so far. Just thought I'd say that much.

Definitely agreed on Double Dash. Cool concept and all, but most of the game was just uninspired and, truthfully, I'm not the biggest fan of sitting in the back pressing the X button the whole game. Blech.

Didn't notice the new Pikmin announcement: I was probably too busy drooling at the Legend of Zelda picture.

And sure, your average casual gamer probably couldn't get everything in Galaxy, but it didn't even get difficult until like the last 10 stars. I just look fondly back to Super Mario Sunshine, where it was a challenge to get to Bowser, let alone get everything. That one's still my personal favorite.

Their focus can't have shifted away from us if we're getting more good stuff than before, and more games geared towards us than casual gamers are getting. I see what you're saying in terms of some games being more accessible, and you don't like this, but this is minor. Nintendo's "demo play" is even evidence that games won't be getting easier.

Eh, I looked at Demo Play as more of an offering to the casual gamers. As if to say, "We know this will probably be too hard for you, but just so we don't leave you out of this we'll let you just skip it, okay?" It's like showing The Matrix, then cutting out all the violent scenes so a younger audience can watch. Admittedly the option isn't required to use, thankfully, but still: it's more of a peace offering to the casuals than an indication of actual challenge.

 

[Sewblon]

Challenge as a core value proposition became unfeasible once we invented the ability to save any time we want. Deal with it.

 

[bwarrior]

Definitely, the new prince of persia was absolutely ruined by the fact that you couldn't even die, its ridiculous

 

[TelHybrid]

It's not the casual gamers, it's the developers/sell outs.

You can't really start getting mad at someone for personal tastes claiming it's ruining your hobby.

 

[slipknot4]

It's not killing the gaming industry.
There is a "Hard" difficulty and one more thing. NO more flamebait threads.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

I love how everyone forgets that casual gaming has been around a lot longer than Popcap...

The only thing "ruining" gaming is cookie cutter sequels and "by the numbers" FPS and RPGs. Producers who look at the top selling charts for new ideas, and the whole underlying decay of the whole industry by focusing on graphics before anything else.

I think neither this nor casual gaming.
I actually believe the industry is fine.
The Wii, I believe, shouldn't be on top but otherwise, everything is great.