EA Exec Says Its Games Are "Too Hard to Learn" For New Players

[Zefar]

Where do these EA people get this stuff from?

All I ever see on forums is how they dumb down Battlefield if anything. All though BF3 and BF4 still demand quite a bit of skill in vehicles to be effective with them.

If they are asking people then the question is who they are asking this stuff. Soccer moms? Teenage girls who have never touched a PC game? Kids who never touched a PC before?

 

[Armadox]

Who the hell takes two hours to learn how to play a game?

have you played crusader kings II? or your first trek into playing kerbal space program?

lots of menu's/UI and lots of vocab to understand what the game is talking about, if you go into the games not watching any tutorials or anything, you'll be there for a while to learn it all.

laughably, I have yet to play an EA game that takes even close to an hour to learn, so idk what the fuck he is babbling about. It's been a while since EA had some horrible PR, so I suppose it was about that time.

I'd like you to go out and find a little game called Darklands. It's on Steam now I think, I'll wait. Two hours in did you die a lot? Did you get very far at all? MicroProse created a game where trial and error held real risk and you could take a long time figuring out the ins and outs of the game. Hell, you need the instruction manual, the feelies and a bit of wit just to get the basics. The game is vast in depth and scale, but not easy and not approachable, they knew their audience and built an adventure around that audience.

Here is the problem I see with EA's statement, they do not make Darklands. If it wasn't for Maxis, they'd be very dry for expansive game systems. They build easy to jump into mass market games. Most AAA does, because there money flows. This is fine, but to deny complex game systems are a thing is to ignore gaming's roots. I would love a new Darklands. I enjoy my Nethack and my Dwarf Fortress, and it does take a long time to get good or even competent at them. Hell, even some relatively simple games like League of Legends, where your goal is straight forward, the build and meta game can take hours to get good enough to enter the game.

What EA could do would be to break up their games into approachability difficulty. These A games are pick up and go, your B games require a bit more skill to get the basics or go through the tutorials, and C games requires an investment from the player to learn.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Maybe instead of telling us to "git gud" EA should learn how to make good games.

 

[scw55]

The issue is not if a game takes 2 hours to learn.
But for 2 hours you feel terrible at the game.

A good game teaches you how to play in a fun way.

Learning to play quickly really only matters if you play multiplayer. Where losing sucks or being a dead weight sucks.

 

[Karadalis]

The industry pulls in more money then the movie industry... im pretty sure gaming is doing very fine with attracting new customers MR. EA exec.. your games are not "to difficult"...

Youre simply to greedy

 

[SilverStuddedSquirre]

This is true up to a point.


If you think otherwise, how long have you been a gamer? Do you remember what the first game you played was like?

For that matter, if you're old enough, you probably remember stuff like the NES controller. 4 buttons, and a directional control... And often you didn't even use all the buttons that much.

Contrast this to modern games with effectively 12 buttons and 4 analog axes of control and you can see the complexity has gone through the roof. (Especially with some games needing to resort to context sensitive actions, or multi-button combos to even map everything down to just 12 buttons)

If you cannot see how it may be difficult for new gamers to understand, then you've probably been blinded by your own level of experience, and cannot actually truly see things from the perspective of a new player.

That's not to say dumbing down games will help any, but it does show you need some less complex games to ease the barrier to entry.

If you start with something simple, and get the hang of that, you can probably cope with something more demanding later on.
But if you are expected to jump in the deep end right from the start, you may look at it and end up going "This is too hard, I give up" And go do something else instead...

I think you have a really good point. I experience this when people drive with my steering Wheel in Gran Tourismo 6

People who are good drivers are scared by taking 5 laps to lean teh feel of a given vehicle. And these are taking controls they are familiar with in terms of a 900 degrees rotation just like real cars, gas and brake pedals and a v-tech shifter.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Goddammit EA, just shut up and make another Road Rash game! Or is that too hard for gamers to learn how to play?

 

[Armadox]

Goddammit EA, just shut up and make another Road Rash game! Or is that too hard for gamers to learn how to play?

No, no no no.. Deep Silver Volition should do a "Road Rash" like game, and EA needs to work on a legit, no bullshit sequel to M.U.L.E.

Seriously EA, I have a net connection now, I want to play an up-dated M.U.L.E. online against the unsuspecting masses.

 

[runic knight]

You mean the hand-holding tutorials where you treat your audience like morons who can't even do a basic controller button map check for the basics like "move" take too long to complete? Gee, can't imagine why when you treat every player like they are an imbecile. But alright, you are learning, lets see what you came up with for a solution?

Oh. Your solution is to make the games dumber.

Bravo -slow clap- Bra-vo.

Nice to know the value you have in the intelligence of the average gamer.

Now that isn't to say I can't see people still leraning new things in a game two hours or later in. But that comes from deeper games or subtle mechanics, shit this guy wouldn't know if it hit him upside the head. This is just sad.

Why don't you save everyone the hassle and heartbreak as you drag the last of your fanbase's confidence into the gutter and just do what you all want to do in the EA board room already. Make the god damn iphone app games already, bow out of major game development and publishing and stop trying to spread your stupid to other people, please.

 

[Mr_Spanky]

This just in: Someone at EA says stuff - is wrong.
In other news: Is hitting yourself in the head repeatedly with a blunt object bad for your health? Find out after these messages . . . .

 

[Phil the Nervous]

They are difficult to uninstall, I'll give EA that.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

Most suits/execs in big corporations really are completely disconnected from reality aren't they?

 

[Himax9]

"EA: Games by idiots, for idiots.

Now give us your money."