Are Video Games getting easier?

[Exocet]

Hmmmmm you make a good argument that games are more COMPLEX. I don't think it follows that they're easier. There's a big difference between difficult and complex, as I am about to prove with a real-life example from my childhood.

Take "Master of Magic", an extremely old C64 game that involved the player, as portrayed by a small yellow dot, running around various grey corridors in a top-down maze view. Frustratingly near the start was a vampire that held the dagger you needed to beat the minotaur at the end. Without that dagger, you didn't stand a chance in hell of surviving an encounter with him, yet you had to get past him in order to retrieve the amulet that was the object of your quest.

But the real monster wasn't the poor old Minotaur (if you have the dagger of death then he's dead, if not then YOU'RE dead, nothing complex there), it's the vampire you had to fight to get the dagger you needed to kill the minotaur. I do not know of ANY monster in ANY game that had a worse reputation than that vampire. It was ten pixels of pure death. I'm not kidding. If it got close to you, you were dead, yet in order to cast magic or try to hit him (not that your weapons and spells were particularly effective against him) you had to stop and use the "cast" command. Also, it could move as fast as you could. It couldn't be thrown off your scent. It would just keep coming, and coming, and coming, and NEVER STOP. Terminator-vampire.

It was about a centimetre tall and made of ten pixels, for chrissakes.

"Master of Magic" was not a complex game. There were several varieties of enemy, one NPC, a few weapons and armour, five spells, and some identical-looking corridors. Oh, and some fantastically creepy music. Everything that took place was written on a pixellated yellow scroll in text. TEXT.

And yet there remain only three games I've ever had actual nightmares about: System Shock, System Shock 2, and Master of Magic on the C64. I don't think I've ever experienced such nauseating dread in a game as I have when approaching the door to the corridor where that vampire lives. (Did I mention there's no "autosave" in "Master of Magic"?)

Dammit, now I've thought about it, I'm gonna start seeing those ten pixels in my dreams again.

F--king vampire.

Damn, this post has been cathartic. Ahem... anyways... point made I think.

Actually,my point is that they're more complex,therefore harder.
Your exemple shows exactly that.The difficulty was the guess work behind it and trying to type your commands as fast as possible.Had the game been made today,you would have had to fight that vampire one on one,trying to understand when it would strike so you could block and hit it,or running away in a non-top-down view in a maze making that much easier to get lost and slaughtered by the vampire.The vampire might even have had laser eyes,considering games these days need to be "flashier" to sell correctly.

 

[mattttherman3]

Video games don't really get easier, we just get older. Personally, I play games for fun and for the story, generally if the difficulty is too high, I don't have fun.

 

[the D0rk One]

*Plays Mainstream Title #245*

I believe they are getting easier...

*Plays Demon's Souls*

Games are hard man, really hard.

I have to agree with this, there are some exceptions like demon's souls, but most games released in this gen are really easy.

yep. looks like most devs are scared they'll lose players if they have to hit retry more than once.

 

[vivec710]

I think it really depends on the game. If it's story driven they seem to be a little bit easier. Now if your playing a game that doesn't really have a

story then they're usually a bit harder than the other. Then again it also depends on what difficulty your playing on but i do have to agree there

are a few games that even on hard they're fairly easy but those are usually shitty games.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Hmmmmm you make a good argument that games are more COMPLEX. I don't think it follows that they're easier. There's a big difference between difficult and complex, as I am about to prove with a real-life example from my childhood.

Take "Master of Magic", an extremely old C64 game that involved the player, as portrayed by a small yellow dot, running around various grey corridors in a top-down maze view. Frustratingly near the start was a vampire that held the dagger you needed to beat the minotaur at the end. Without that dagger, you didn't stand a chance in hell of surviving an encounter with him, yet you had to get past him in order to retrieve the amulet that was the object of your quest.

But the real monster wasn't the poor old Minotaur (if you have the dagger of death then he's dead, if not then YOU'RE dead, nothing complex there), it's the vampire you had to fight to get the dagger you needed to kill the minotaur. I do not know of ANY monster in ANY game that had a worse reputation than that vampire. It was ten pixels of pure death. I'm not kidding. If it got close to you, you were dead, yet in order to cast magic or try to hit him (not that your weapons and spells were particularly effective against him) you had to stop and use the "cast" command. Also, it could move as fast as you could. It couldn't be thrown off your scent. It would just keep coming, and coming, and coming, and NEVER STOP. Terminator-vampire.

It was about a centimetre tall and made of ten pixels, for chrissakes.

"Master of Magic" was not a complex game. There were several varieties of enemy, one NPC, a few weapons and armour, five spells, and some identical-looking corridors. Oh, and some fantastically creepy music. Everything that took place was written on a pixellated yellow scroll in text. TEXT.

And yet there remain only three games I've ever had actual nightmares about: System Shock, System Shock 2, and Master of Magic on the C64. I don't think I've ever experienced such nauseating dread in a game as I have when approaching the door to the corridor where that vampire lives. (Did I mention there's no "autosave" in "Master of Magic"?)

Dammit, now I've thought about it, I'm gonna start seeing those ten pixels in my dreams again.

F--king vampire.

Damn, this post has been cathartic. Ahem... anyways... point made I think.

Actually,my point is that they're more complex,therefore harder.
Your exemple shows exactly that.The difficulty was the guess work behind it and trying to type your commands as fast as possible.Had the game been made today,you would have had to fight that vampire one on one,trying to understand when it would strike so you could block and hit it,or running away in a non-top-down view in a maze making that much easier to get lost and slaughtered by the vampire.The vampire might even have had laser eyes,considering games these days need to be "flashier" to sell correctly.

It may have had text, but it wasn't the type of game where you "type" your commands. It's played with a joypad and a single button. And the game stops when you press the button so you can choose a command - you can take as long as you want. The difficulty is that some of the commands (for example, cast spell, swing weapon) take real game-time to carry out, and the vampire doesn't stop when hit.

This is about as simple as it gets - one monster, one long corridor, one joypad with one button. And yet the thing you were facing had the reputation of being nigh-on unkillable.

 

[Eternalsun]

soul calibur the tower of souls... If you have tried to complete it youll understand my pain

 

[kimba_lion]

their either getting easier(assassins creed 2, fable2)

or they are just beyond rediculous (demons souls)

i suppose zelda TP was too easy as well lets hope we get a challenge this time and a longer game, with no ganondorf...

 

[Kookookrazy]

See i think the problem is today noone really caters the the "older" style of gamer like me who would rather have a more challenging gaming experience than pay $100(AUD) for a movie-like game in which occasionally you must hit a button to make things happen.

I enjoy the more in depth stories in games today but unless the game is really challenging i see no point in replaying it again...

Where as if it is challenging i can invite mates over and we all have a good laugh at each others failed attempts at completing particularly hard bosses or situations again and again and again.

 

[Da_Schwartz]

There was a fear to dying and true frustration after your booted to the main menu after missing those classic side scrolling jumps.

Why are you talking about that as if it were a good thing?

EXACTLY! I agree with this guy. (Chicago Ted). He knows what he's talking about. So do I, except I can't put it half as succinctly as he can.

idk i guess it's just me, i enjoy a challenge. I miss the fact that there used to be a time where i actually couldn't beat a game. Nowadays it's just a matter of time until i do.

 

[TPiddy]

Ok, some of them are easy, there are some challenges to be had out there, but we're in a new dynamic in the industry now.

The average gamer is a 20 to 30 something year old with a career they have to think about. These people don't have time to do level 8-1 in Mario 50 fucking times. Hence autosave features, regenerating health, scaling difficulty curves and the like. Game development companies are trying to make their games more accessible because there's more competition than ever.

If I had a choice between playing something insanely difficult for 50 hours or playing two easier games for 25 hours each, I'll take the easier games every damn time. I don't have the patience for games being unreasonably difficult anymore. Though I have beaten Mass Effect 2 on insanity, and that's about as challenging as I like it.

Games now, more than ever, are about the experience and not the challenge. You want a challenging game? Play chess.