"We're Making It Accessible to a Wider Audience."

[GigaHz]

It depends.

"We're making it accessible to a wider audience."

You are optimizing and refining certain mechanics so that those who are less patient or inclined can wrap their head around a specific game or play style. This allows a greater number of people to enjoy your fundamental gaming experience.

/thumbs up

"We're making it marketable to a wider audience."

Your game just isn't 'hip' with today's youth. Let's throw in some Dubstep or internet memes... I don't care if your game is a medieval fantasy, the kids will eat it up. Fans of the series you say? If they were truly fans, they'd accept these changes as rational progression.

/thumbs have broken through concrete

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

Wider audience = less depth.

Case in point, League of Legends vs. DotA

LoL is simpler so that more people can get into it, but its lack of depth makes it very unbalanced (combined with how Riot balances their game, it's no surprise).

DotA on the other hand has great depth for competitive play, but that amount of depth takes time to learn and does not attract as many players.

First of all: LoL has only that much sucsses because DotA appealed to a huge audience. DotA still has one of the biggest player bases on the world (Still around ~9 Million players China not included).

When it comes to balancing LoL and DotA are really the same. LoL acutally has more competitive playable champs than DotA.
The main reason why DotA seems deeper is, that they've yet the better competitive community. There are more top Teams => more competition => more playstyles etc.
Right now, we've the same ~10 teams showing up in LoL - thats the main issue.

Anyway, i don't wann derail this thread to much.

 

[Smiley Face]

Usually I assume it means the game is going to improve its UI and things designed to catch attention at the cost of creativity. It varies some from game to game, sometimes it goes all one way or all the other, but that's usually a safe assumption to make.

 

[217not237]

Well, sometimes it works better. Games like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Final Fantasy VII are a lot more accessible than previous titles, and are a lot deeper.

The problem is, these games are about 15 years old. No developer knows how to keep/increase depth AND broaden its audience in modern days.

 

[Magnicon]

It really comes down to the developer/publisher. There are very few of them left that are respectable in what they do, and because of that, unfortunately, 9 out of 10 times it means a lower quality game.

Either way, it is a term that a developer should never use. The only thing they should say, and do, is "We are going to make the best content we can".

 

[thejackyl]

Could mean anything from: We're cleaning up the UI to make it easier for beginners to learn, and more convenient for experienced players.

To: We're turning an Isometric RPG into a multiplayer FPS

Making a game Accessible is not always a bad thing, but from what I've seen, most developers/publishers tend to veer more towards some sort of extreme.

For example: The original version of X-COM could do with a graphic update and better UI and a small tutorial. (perhaps a single hand-holding mission to get a feel for the Geoscape/Battlescape phases) None of that is by any means bad (I would just add a way to load without bailing on a mission) but as someone who didn't have a manual, the UI seemed kind of foreign to me. Than I watched a Let's Play, and I figured it out.

X-COM is was getting a remake as an FPS to make is more approachable, where as just updating a few things would make it completely approachable by anyone else.

 

[Lunar Templar]

depends on the game but generally

"making it easy for morons, cause that what you all are to us"

 

[octafish]

"We are making this game for the lowest common denominator". Then I think, well there is still Obsidian, just.

 

[Emiscary]

Translates roughly to: we're going to homogenize the game.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

It usually means it will incorpirate various degrees of blandness, lack of difficulty, multiplayer that is often ungodly imbalanced, dumbing down everything, making the adverts juvinile and forgetable and adding pro-right-wing-USA gunwank.

So yeah, I dont like that phrase.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

Seems to me that the only people who have a real problem with making a game more accessible are the "incredibly elitist" within their respective genre/series. It's like the thought of anyone who didn't play the series when it first came out shouldn't be allowed to enjoy it.

 

[daveman247]

Just look at new Hitman.

We havnt seen much of it yet. Save the judgement.
Then again if it turns out like conviction...


OT: Depends on how they tackle it, like others have said. Taking things away entirely is a no-no. Streamlining a few things or making a better effort to explain/ lower the player in to the mechanics turns out much better.

 

[MammothBlade]

I tend to associate accessibility to a wider audience with dumbing down. When developers say "we want to appeal to the Call of Duty crowd", I wrinkle my nose in disgust. However, there is a sweet spot... some games can go over to the far end of the scale, and have such a complex and unwieldy interface that even most seasoned, intelligent gamers cannot get into them. Widening the appeal of a game from masochists to altogether more balanced people is often a good idea. (no offence to masochists)

There are better ways of articulating accessibility. Making a game more "player-friendly" and "intuitive" is reasonable enough, equivalent to cutting out the gristle to make the meat altogether more appetising.

Appealing to the CoD crowd typically means focusing on instant gratification, adding unnecessary hints, lowering the quality and depth of the story to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and all the while reducing complexity of gameplay. Whatever, that came out a bit wrong. Just what I'm trying to say is, people are not the same. You make something catch-all, you're pretty much certain to disillusion the original fanbase, because now a million morons are obsessed with the latest Zelda game but are completely ignorant of previous titles in the series and when exposed to them, complain that they are for "geeks".

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

If I have the game it means... we are going to to strip what the hardcore fans of the previous game(s) liked, and dumb it down so that idiot in your class/work, who you are silently smug about playing more complex games than, can pretend to know everything about your favourite series...

If I don't have the game it means: Hey Elementary, that series you couldn't be bothered to get into because it looked too complicated is now being made for you... quick, read about the predecessor(s), complete the new easier version... and go find some of the original fans to tell all about how much you love the series...

I think I am noticing a pattern...

 

[Nyaoku]

Here we go:
First off, dumbing it down for the more casual groups. Maybe, if you're lucky, variable difficulty.
2nd: More gimmicks. They're gonna try to say it can do everything, but not that if focuses on nothing.
3: The price is gonna stay up there. Need I say more.
4: We didn't get enough money from you the first time.
5: This game's gonna get its servers shut down early due to all everyone easily being distracted by the next thing.
6: ... Not again.
7: Budget got cut so endgame's gonna suffer.
8: DLC ... They're gonna try to fix it somehow ... and charge you while at it.
9: It's going to be unbalanced. Exploits are gonna slip through the cracks.
10: Food $ > want for this thing.

... That about sums it up.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Bigger chairs with a solid support structure, maybe?

 

[Kahunaburger]

There are better ways of articulating accessibility. Making a game more "player-friendly" and "intuitive" is reasonable enough, equivalent to cutting out the gristle to make the meat altogether more appetising.

Yeah, agree with this. I'm kind of on a roguelike kick now basically because Dungeons of Dredmor let me use WASD to walk around instead of W:wipe/wield/wear, A:use item/adjust inventory/remove multiple items, S:search/sit down/save, D:drop single/drop multi/dip/kick.

So I wound up playing things like Dredmor, Brogue, TOME 4, and Shiren that (to various extents) retain things from the roguelike genre like procedural content, interesting interactions, harsh-but-fair (most of the time) gameplay, permadeath, strategic depth, and oh-shit moments while being considerably more accessible than is traditional. If I end up adding a traditional roguelike or two to this list, it will be because the accessible-but-deep ones roped me in.

That said, I don't think many devs are as good at balancing accessibility with depth as someone like Pender or DarkGod is.

 

[chadachada123]

I despise it because, as a console gamer, I end up getting blamed for a lack of options that almost all console gamers want just as much as PC gamers. Options like full mapping of controls, yada yada.

Different sense from what the OP intended with that statement, but something that I've heard in relation to Battlefield 3 and other also-on-PC games.

Skyrim, for example. Why in the ever-loving fuck can't I sort my items like I could in Oblivion? PC or Console, it's complete bullshit.