Are today's gamers, on average, dumber?

[Jake Martinez]

All I can say is that the only games that I still play, years and years past their release date, are old strategy games (MOO2, Alpha Centauri, Civilization, HoMM, etc).

They just have more depth, so they hold my interest longer. I tend to get bored with FPS's after a couple of months.

Personally, I think we're going to see the industry implode itself with the FPS genre, much like Activision did to Guitar Hero. They're going to keep ushering out new titles and increasing the budgets on them to the point where it will be unsustainable. This is why you are seeing so many companies moving to hand held games as their new market - it has wide saturation (almost everyone owns a smart phone/device) and the games are cheaper to produce.

Personally, I'm optimistic. I run a software division at a major company, and from my personal experience in the industry, developing software has actually gotten easier rather than harder, despite the complexity of the hardware to run most of it. Production budgets are high for triple-A titles not because it takes an army of programmers to do the work, but because of the overhead incurred by running large projects in a short period of time (you also might be shocked to find out how much of a game budget is purely devoted to things like administrative costs and not actual development).

Because of this, I think we'll see the indy scene start to thrive, and likely we'll see them pick up genres that will sell well, but won't directly compete with the shovelware that the major publishers are putting out. Torchlight is a good example of this - there aren't a lot of action rpg's (er.. dungeon crawlers??) out there, so despite it's limited production values (and the fact that it used an opensource 3D engine), it sold phenominally well. Minecraft is also another obvious example.

So yeah... watch this space. I'm fairly confident that the absolute best days of PC gaming are ahead, and that more than likely it will come from a new generation of autuers like the ones that put the fire under the current multi-billion dollar gaming empires.

 

[X3N0N]

People are dumber, welcome to the 21st century. Challenging puzzle and strategy games still exist, they are just much less prevalent because other types of game sell better.

 

[lord.jeff]

In the old days we had games like this:

Today we have games like this:

 

[Capt MacGregor]

Probably been said by someone else before me, but I think its more due to the fact that more different types of people are gaming compared with a while ago.

 

[Sigma Van Lockheart]

OK I don?t think that gamers have become dumber on average the reason for me thinking like this is that I became a gamer in the middle part of your 2 examples I played them both and loved them both. Yet now gaming is more open to people and thus more people play games the reason for this is that it has become easier to do so with consoles and game companies have made it easier to play games so that it can appeal to a wider range. So now that it is easier to get into more people play and yes some of them happen to have been hit by the stupid stick a few more time than they should have been.

 

[HardkorSB]

The point is in the old days we had a wide diversity of game genres. Tactical games, sim games, tycoons and clever hybrids of all of the above. It's hard to argue games of that complexity aren't being produced any more. Back in 1999 JA2 was in every way an AAA title. You might try, but you won't find any titles like that in the current AAA lineup.

Ah yes, the "old days", when everything was better, there was worldwide peace and the cars ran on the power of friendship. Those were the days, weren't they?

 

[Fishyash]

You're comparing old RTS and RPG against current day FPS and TPS....

While your comparison is horrible as an actual comparison I do think it's one of the closest I've ever seen to the well-known apples and oranges comparison.

I agree with this.

Comparing strategy or RPG games to FPS games is just silly. I just don't see that as a possible argument. FPS games were DEFINATELY not more complex years ago.

Unless you're arguing something else entirely? Yes, at certain periods, one genre will be more popular than the rest. Eventually it will come to pass. Just like the RTS games, just like the old FPS games, just like the animal mascot platformers and just like the 2d fighters.

 

[eggy32]

The point is in the old days we had a wide diversity of game genres. Tactical games, sim games, tycoons and clever hybrids of all of the above. It's hard to argue games of that complexity aren't being produced any more. Back in 1999 JA2 was in every way an AAA title. You might try, but you won't find any titles like that in the current AAA lineup.

Ah yes, the "old days", when everything was better, there was worldwide peace and the cars ran on the power of friendship. Those were the days, weren't they?

Lol, ah the good old days.
Sooner or later the OP is going to realise that those genres still exist.

 

[Blackpapa]

The point is in the old days we had a wide diversity of game genres. Tactical games, sim games, tycoons and clever hybrids of all of the above. It's hard to argue games of that complexity aren't being produced any more. Back in 1999 JA2 was in every way an AAA title. You might try, but you won't find any titles like that in the current AAA lineup.

Ah yes, the "old days", when everything was better, there was worldwide peace and the cars ran on the power of friendship. Those were the days, weren't they?

Lol, ah the good old days.
Sooner or later the OP is going to realise that those genres still exist.

Fortunately Bobby Kotick didn't go back in time to kill the developers of those games and they very much exist today.

However do those genres exist as AAA titles or anywhere in the mainstream?

That, my misguided friend, is the topic at hand. The answer is, if you're still uncertain, anywhere from "mostly no" to "not anymore". This thread is about answering the question "Why not?"

 

[mrdude2010]

if the difficulty in video games is anything to go by all the developers think we're retarded. the reach campaign was a joke compared to halo 2 or CE on legendary, and those were a joke compared to some of the older RPGs

 

[FalloutJack]

That is a question for Id Software.

Personally, I don't think FPS games equal dumb users. It's just that there are alot of dumb users who like to play them. One is true and the reverse is not, you see. Now, I'm a sophisticated person, but let's just face it. I also like violence in my games. It's theraputic.

 

[Treblaine]

By no means am I saying FPS games are inferior. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing ARMA2 as much as the next guy.

The point is in the old days we had a wide diversity of game genres. Tactical games, sim games, tycoons and clever hybrids of all of the above. It's hard to argue games of that complexity aren't being produced any more. Back in 1999 JA2 was in every way an AAA title. You might try, but you won't find any titles like that in the current AAA lineup.

The question is why? Publishers are quick to answer that thinking games aren't

contemporary

, as per this article: http://www.gamefront.com/2k-boss-strategy-games-arent-contemporary/

It's obvious enough that publishers go where the money is and wouldn't hesitate to release anything that would turn a profit. The logical explanation why complex strategy/management/sim games aren't developed then is because they wouldn't sell. But here's the thing - those games did sell, very well actually. Most gamers born before 1993 should recognize the images I posted instantly.

In fact, if anything, gaming has become more, not less popular. Which means not only more people but a wider diversity of players as well. If anything that should contribute, not harm the variety of games released.

So why is the number of genres decreasing? Why have "thinking" games been almost entirely displaced by "twitch" games? Is there a better explanation than a sudden drop in global IQ?

(Or are the publishers just giving us a hint that if you enjoy playing Capitalism then you probably would be better off doing the same thing IRL instead?)

No, but on there are WAY more of us and a crowd is only as smart as the dumbest individual.

So it only takes a few loud-mouth idiots saying "awww, it's too complicated" for EVERYONE to be put off a game. Especially those idiots who act like they are smart and depict all moderate problems as hugely insurmountable odds.

Also publishers figured out long ago that even if the majority can play a more complicated game, they could sell to more people by making it simpler as there was not that initial hard time of getting used to a new complicated thing.

I blame self actualisation.

In the past, the corporations would try to tell people what they wanted, that's what advertisement did, make you want THIS type of car, THIS type of bread, THAT brand of freezer.

But self-actualisation in the 70's and hugely in the 80's and absolutely everywhere by the 90's, corporations lost all ability to manipulate the consumers. But they did have a solutions: give them what they want. Not what they need, what they want. not what they'd prefer, what they want.

target their inner selfish desires. And giv it to them.

Gaming lagged behind with this for quite a while, games were originally a challenge that you may not actually want at first but you forced your way through to get intellectual satisfaction. But as big businesses like Sony and Microsoft got into the game then Nintendo's new leaders, it was all about appealing to base desires to maximise sales.

It works, give people something nice and simple that is what they WANT (not what they know would be better for them).

"Is there a better explanation than a sudden drop in global IQ?"

On the contrary, the Flynn effect [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect] Means the population as a whole is steadily and highly regularly increasing in it's average Intelligence Quotient. It has been going on for a while now and very consistently, and the IQ scoring is keeping pace with it, to be normalised with the population.

In fact if your great grandfather was brought forward in time (from his youth at his peak IQ) and took the same test today, then he would probably be considered Mentally Retarded. Yes, we are so much smarter than the people of your great grandfather's age that they are clinically retarded by comparison.

How about you look at this the OTHER way.

Games are pretty much in the mainstream now, yet they take far more intelligence to consume than the mainstream media of the past like watching TV shows or movies.

You're doing the wrong comparison, you should compare playing Dead Space to watching MTV.

Dead Space may not be a very cerebral game but it is more intellectually stimulating than watching Music television.

 

[Blackpapa]

No, but on there are WAY more of us and a crowd is only as smart as the dumbest individual.

So it only takes a few loud-mouth idiots saying "awww, it's too complicated" for EVERYONE to be put off a game. Especially those idiots who act like they are smart and depict all moderate problems as hugely insurmountable odds.

Also publishers figured out long ago that even if the majority can play a more complicated game, they could sell to more people by making it simpler as there was not that initial hard time of getting used to a new complicated thing.

I blame self actualisation.

In the past, the corporations would try to tell people what they wanted, that's what advertisement did, make you want THIS type of car, THIS type of bread, THAT brand of freezer.

But self-actualisation in the 70's and hugely in the 80's and absolutely everywhere by the 90's, corporations lost all ability to manipulate the consumers. But they did have a solutions: give them what they want. Not what they need, what they want. not what they'd prefer, what they want.

target their inner selfish desires. And giv it to them.

Gaming lagged behind with this for quite a while, games were originally a challenge that you may not actually want at first but you forced your way through to get intellectual satisfaction. But as big businesses like Sony and Microsoft got into the game then Nintendo's new leaders, it was all about appealing to base desires to maximise sales.

It works, give people something nice and simple that is what they WANT (not what they know would be better for them).

First let me say yours is a very insightful post.

You're right about that. Around 2000 games were created by developers who often created the game they wanted to play themselves. Game developers are among the most hardcore gamers out there so it's no big surprise the games they created were fairly complex.

With that complexity came a steep learning curve. It hurt sales, initially, as it created a game that's hard to learn. But once mastered it was much more rewarding than more accessible titles.

As the industry transformed into more and more of a business run by businessmen who weren't gamers or geeks it focused towards maximizing profit. Salesmen didn't see the potential reward the player received as a bonus as ultimately what mattered was selling the game. This is why marketing rose in prominence and became an important factor of game development, often taking a substantial chunk of money from the development budget. This happened about the same time games became more accessible. Instead of simple magazine ads we had more and more elaborate campaigns. Anyone remember ilovebees?

Quickly the industry realized there's little to gain by creating risky and ambitious projects. The game might receive universal critical praise, it might become a cult classic but more often than not that game would initially go on unrecognised and have poor sales. Case in point: Planescape Torment.

So the industry realized that creating masterpieces doesn't necessarily mean good sales - and there's a high chance of it having the opposite effect. And since salesmen took over the CEO positions that was quickly put on the "Do not try this" list.

"Is there a better explanation than a sudden drop in global IQ?"

On the contrary, the Flynn effect [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect] Means the population as a whole is steadily and highly regularly increasing in it's average Intelligence Quotient. It has been going on for a while now and very consistently, and the IQ scoring is keeping pace with it, to be normalised with the population.

In fact if your great grandfather was brought forward in time (from his youth at his peak IQ) and took the same test today, then he would probably be considered Mentally Retarded. Yes, we are so much smarter than the people of your great grandfather's age that they are clinically retarded by comparison.

Haha, I must say that I was perfectly aware of that when writing the post and even wondered if anyone would point out that global IQ is, in fact, rising. To be honest I baited you folks a bit with the topic title.

Personally I don't think gamers have gotten dumber. If it were true then it would be a pretty good argument for publishers to keep dumbing the games down even further. After all, why create great games when "gamers are dumb"?

Yes, it's true the demographic is broader than ever and includes more casual people. But while the percentage of gamers who are likely to appreciate games like JA2 is no doubt smaller, the actual hard number is much larger. Large enough to make risky, ambitious projects potentially profitable. Especially now, with there being more low-hanging fruit than you can shake a stick at and a lack of ambitious titles.

There are several factors at play here that are responsible for the lack of innovation, and decreasing complexity of games. There's the rising cost of development which means a bigger loss in case of a flop. There's businessmen who prefer a safe if small profit to a larger, more risky one and few companies are willing to take that risk. There's the factor of accessibility, where making a game simpler doesn't exclude anyone, while the opposite is false. There's the problem of console input devices being a poor choice for navigating GUI-heavy games.

In the end it's not gamers being stupid, even if the industry makes it look so. It's the commercialization of industry which knows that it doesn't need to create ambitious, complex games. And time and time again game visionaries are reminded of this, like Chris Taylor with SupCom1. I'm sure he would've loved nothing more than to release an even more complex, sophisticated SupCom2 if only he had the chance. But it's perfectly understandable he woke up one day and said to himself "I don't want to create digital works of art and drive a Chevy. I want to drive a Ferrari and if I have to sell out my vision to do it, to hell with it."

 

[Treblaine]

"Is there a better explanation than a sudden drop in global IQ?"

On the contrary, the Flynn effect [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect] Means the population as a whole is steadily and highly regularly increasing in it's average Intelligence Quotient. It has been going on for a while now and very consistently, and the IQ scoring is keeping pace with it, to be normalised with the population.

In fact if your great grandfather was brought forward in time (from his youth at his peak IQ) and took the same test today, then he would probably be considered Mentally Retarded. Yes, we are so much smarter than the people of your great grandfather's age that they are clinically retarded by comparison.

Haha, I must say that I was perfectly aware of that when writing the post and even wondered if anyone would point out that global IQ is, in fact, rising. To be honest I baited you folks a bit with the topic title.

Personally I don't think gamers have gotten dumber. If it were true then it would be a pretty good argument for publishers to keep dumbing the games down even further. After all, why create great games when "gamers are dumb"?

Yes, it's true the demographic is broader than ever and includes more casual people. But while the percentage of gamers who are likely to appreciate games like JA2 is no doubt smaller, the actual hard number is much larger. Large enough to make risky, ambitious projects potentially profitable. Especially now, with there being more low-hanging fruit than you can shake a stick at and a lack of ambitious titles.

There are several factors at play here that are responsible for the lack of innovation, and decreasing complexity of games. There's the rising cost of development which means a bigger loss in case of a flop. There's businessmen who prefer a safe if small profit to a larger, more risky one and few companies are willing to take that risk. There's the factor of accessibility, where making a game simpler doesn't exclude anyone, while the opposite is false. There's the problem of console input devices being a poor choice for navigating GUI-heavy games.

In the end it's not gamers being stupid, even if the industry makes it look so. It's the commercialization of industry which knows that it doesn't need to create ambitious, complex games. And time and time again game visionaries are reminded of this, like Chris Taylor with SupCom1. I'm sure he would've loved nothing more than to release an even more complex, sophisticated SupCom2 if only he had the chance. But it's perfectly understandable he woke up one day and said to himself "I don't want to create digital works of art and drive a Chevy. I want to drive a Ferrari and if I have to sell out my vision to do it, to hell with it."

Well, I am determined to look at the broader egalitarian perspective. How can we bring ALL people up, rather than cutting the greatest down.

Sure, it is probably true, that "gamers" - people who play games - are on average "dumber" than this demographic used to be. That's not because any individuals have gotten dumber, only that this party is no longer reserved for the elite and partially we have ourselfs the thank/blame. For years we championed that games were great, important and should be enjoyed and accepted by all... and now they are.

BUT, on the broader side, look at how mainstream games now are. Even a typical action game today is FAR more intellectually challenging than 90% of the passive media out there. Even a brainless shooter you have to think about so many thing, so many angles, the tricks, second-guessing the other players. And do the "intellectual" movies actually encourage you to think? Did Bowling for Columbine inform you and leave it up for you to decide or were you just manipulated and bamboozled into accepting the director's interpretation?

Even though at the moment we are in the middle of a trend of dumbing games down for mass appeal, people are learning. People only get better at games with time, we are building a new elite demographic of gamers.

An elite that is 1000x larger than in the golden age of gaming, hundreds of millions of individuals strong, slowly but surely games are getting more complex, they are evolving at a steady pace. The 7 year olds who are playing pokemon today, their 7 year old minds are the equivalent of a clinically retarded adult, as they grow older and so much smarter they will want more. Even within adult demographics of "casual" games every iteration they add a little bit more, as people get more familiar and their minds adapt the the pressures of the game challenge they will be receptive to more complexity.

We are very close to reaching the point of an arms-race between developers for a large experienced gaming demographic who are hungry for more, and developers can't dumb down any more, they will compete to have the most satisfying game.

That is the great challenge facing developers today. Those who made those wonderfully complex and challenging games that they made for the pioneers of video gaming, they need to bring up the masses to this level and they cannot do it in one fell swoop.

It's not impossible. Look at the popularity of Farmville. Of course it is insultingly simplistic but this is a launch pad to build on. Silent film slapstick comedy first got people into the cinema seats but ONLY THEN would they see Citizen Kane.

 

[Treblaine]

That is a question for Id Software.

Personally, I don't think FPS games equal dumb users. It's just that there are alot of dumb users who like to play them. One is true and the reverse is not, you see. Now, I'm a sophisticated person, but let's just face it. I also like violence in my games. It's theraputic.

Yeah, a game that has "twitch" does not preclude advanced thought.

Though I can see what people mean, how can you think deeply when it is better just to react instantly and with the most force?

Well some games that is just not an option, like Team Fortress 2 where teamwork is of so much importance that is an aspect of thought and planning where the pressure of time and split-second reactions is a challenge but not an inhibition.

Most of the thought in COD online multiplayer is in the weapon-loadout screen and even then it is not encouraged with all the fake gun stats that are hard to compare. I did spend quite a while crafting the perfect class balancing time-to-kill and bullets-to-kill and so on but I have to glean that from stats that are hacked from the PC-game code and published online. Even then it's splitting hairs, almost all the weapons are automatic hitscan weapons with almost trivial differences.

One thing I will say after playing Bioshock, then Bioshock 2 (both on PC), the former had a quick-inventory where at the push of a button the game paused and I could pick from one of 14 weapons and plasmids(magic), while Bioshock 2 lacked the ability to pause and select a weapon/plasmid. That time, fraction of a second was all I needed to select a weapon made such a difference in how tactically I could play, what weapon and plasmid combinations were so pivotal. Sure, on PC I had many hotkeys - not all in that easy reach - but having just a few seconds to chose the ideal tool for the job was all I needed to think about the best tool for the job.

But one thing I think could work is gesture based. I use this for web browsing all the time, very quick and easy to execute a multitude of functions.

So you hold a button (shift) and draw down and to the left with your mouse. In fact you can draw in any direction; up, down, left or right; then for the next gesture again left, right, continue down or back up. So with a flick of your wrist you can give 16 different weapons/items/magic-spells/whatever.

On console it would be a bit more limited, hold a button and move the stick to 12, 3, 6, or 9 o'clock position then rotate clockwise or counter-clockwise for different options. This is only 8 inputs, you could double it up by clicking-down on the thumbstick but that's kinda awkward really.

Anyway, that's not quite the same ans pausing everythign and just having the time to LOOK over all the abilities at your disposal and chose the ideal one.

Hmm, I'd have a sorted gesture menu so:

Down = heavy weapons
right = Light weapons
Up = magic
left = items

yeah, that might work, with icons flashing up for each one.

 

[Ranorak]

The point is in the old days we had a wide diversity of game genres. Tactical games, sim games, tycoons and clever hybrids of all of the above. It's hard to argue games of that complexity aren't being produced any more. Back in 1999 JA2 was in every way an AAA title. You might try, but you won't find any titles like that in the current AAA lineup.

Ah yes, the "old days", when everything was better, there was worldwide peace and the cars ran on the power of friendship. Those were the days, weren't they?

Lol, ah the good old days.
Sooner or later the OP is going to realise that those genres still exist.

Fortunately Bobby Kotick didn't go back in time to kill the developers of those games and they very much exist today.

However do those genres exist as AAA titles or anywhere in the mainstream?

That, my misguided friend, is the topic at hand. The answer is, if you're still uncertain, anywhere from "mostly no" to "not anymore". This thread is about answering the question "Why not?"

Here's another question to answer.
Why does it matter if the Sim, tactical and "intelligent" games are mainstream?

Those games weren't mainstream back then either.
You know what was mainstream in the '90?
Mario
Zelda
Goldeneye
Half-life
Tomb Raider

Mainstream is based on popularity.
Looking at the number of gamers we can clearly see that they shot through the roof.
This added a whole new type of gamer. The ones that just want to sit down, play for a hour and do something else.
This doesn't make them less intelligent.
Gaming it self has turned from a niche hobby, like model train building or stamp collecting, into a full blown entertainment sector.

The focus of popular games is Pick up & Play style. Like it has been in the past.
This coming from the guy who just ended his 5th day of Hot Seat, 2 player, Marathon Mode Civilization V session. And we're still just at Musket-men.
But I do like to just pop in Saints Row 2 in my Xbox and blow shit up for 50 minutes.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

I'd like to think that gamers on average are dumber. Not because we're less intelligent but because there are more of us, odds are that on average there are now dumber gamers in the fold and there are more of them than there was before.

However I still have to chuckle when someone points to Mass Effect or Dragon Age as a shining example of an RPG for modern times. It's like pointing to a bottle of Jif and and claiming it's shining example of lemons; when really it's just a pale immitation.