"coddling" is not the best term I would use.
Guys, I know a lot of us are all getting some strange pride boner out of being a "hardcore" gamer and all, but seriously, stop it.
Sometimes, games are made with you in mind. sometimes, the games are made with the greater mass market in mind. And let me tell you, one of the largest effects of an industry being a mass market product is that they want to streamline the way people enjoy it so they can get to the core content WITHOUT making them bang their head against the wall.
You guys need to understand that not everyone is going to want to play a game that has them fail 100 times before they have to learn that one crucial button combo that gets them through the next segment. In fact, I dare say MOST people now a days don't have time for that.
Think of it like movies. Now, a studio can either make a super high brow movie that is all contemplative and asks a lot of interesting introspective questions and said movie will have GREAT critical acclaim, like say, the Social Network. You will probably make money off of it, since, you know, Oscar baits generally do. Or you can make another Transformers, a dumb, stupid, and utterly meaningless piece of explosion porn, and make 10 times that for probably the same budget.
If you want to reach a wider audience, you need to be willing to bring the entry barrier down a little. If every game you see now was like back in the 80s-90s where there is a pretty high difficulty ramp up, you're not going to be able to sell to anybody except teenage boys who have ample amount of free time on their hands.
When the average gamer is 34 years old, that's a lot of disposable income you're leaving on the table by just courting teenage men.
Guys, I know a lot of us are all getting some strange pride boner out of being a "hardcore" gamer and all, but seriously, stop it.
Sometimes, games are made with you in mind. sometimes, the games are made with the greater mass market in mind. And let me tell you, one of the largest effects of an industry being a mass market product is that they want to streamline the way people enjoy it so they can get to the core content WITHOUT making them bang their head against the wall.
You guys need to understand that not everyone is going to want to play a game that has them fail 100 times before they have to learn that one crucial button combo that gets them through the next segment. In fact, I dare say MOST people now a days don't have time for that.
Think of it like movies. Now, a studio can either make a super high brow movie that is all contemplative and asks a lot of interesting introspective questions and said movie will have GREAT critical acclaim, like say, the Social Network. You will probably make money off of it, since, you know, Oscar baits generally do. Or you can make another Transformers, a dumb, stupid, and utterly meaningless piece of explosion porn, and make 10 times that for probably the same budget.
If you want to reach a wider audience, you need to be willing to bring the entry barrier down a little. If every game you see now was like back in the 80s-90s where there is a pretty high difficulty ramp up, you're not going to be able to sell to anybody except teenage boys who have ample amount of free time on their hands.
When the average gamer is 34 years old, that's a lot of disposable income you're leaving on the table by just courting teenage men.
