Games getting shorter and easier, Not a bad thing.
By Zabant 33 Comments
Games getting shorter and easier, Not a bad thing.
Ok, i'm getting quite tired with the constant complaining amongst the "Hardcore" community of gamers that games are made to be finished these days and that they're more like 8 hour roller-coasters when compared to the longer and harder challenging games of old. Look folks, most of the kids from the early 90's and 80's are now grown ass adults that cant justify spending all their free time playing games but still very much love them and want to play them, and as it turns out these people are the biggest purchasers of games, they're the people that keep the industry alive so it makes sense to cater to their needs right?
The average age of the gamer is like, if I'm remembering correctly 32 or something. We're not the same kids who; the second they got home from school would play a game until it was time to go to sleep, getting ready for school the next day. Most people in their 30's have kids, partners and other responsibilities they care about that, I'm not going to say get in the way but, as a responsible adult take more precedent then your want of gaming. Now I'm not saying that huge expansive games don't have a place any more, for example a game like fallout 3. F3 always gets its detractors saying it was ruined and made too easy by going to a first person perspective. While I totally understand where this view is coming from you have to really take a look at what state we live in today as a gamer. Games cost £40 new, you want to be able to put it in and be able to play and finish a quest and have fun, making the game arbitrarily hard either through simple AI number tweeks or sometimes through bad controls or design is kind of unacceptable, all it does is artificially make the game longer because you're spending ages either grinding to be an equal level to the enemy you're facing or retrying it over and over so you can get better, or even worse in some games cases where you're just smashing your head against the wall in hopes of getting lucky and getting the win. If we're going to spend so much money and what little free time we have on games they better damn well be fun and rewarding and not pointlessly punishing because some developer doesn't think you're good enough to deserve to win and have fun or wants to make their game seem longer than it actually is with pointless padding and difficulty in place of actual content.
The real challenge now is in multi-player games, for the folks that want a bit more of a competitive aspect they can always take the game online and play against other people, and no matter what anyone says, beating a real life dudes ass will always be more challenging and rewarding then beating a stupidly tough AI that has all the unfair advantages that being a computer gives.
Massively long and nutbusting games will always have a place in modern gaming (demon's souls), but can we please stop bitching that games aren't as "HARDCORE" as they used to be? our industry is huge and the majority of people who buy games do not want those experiences anymore, to say they don't deserve to play because they don't have the time or want to invest in getting stupidly good so they can pass some needlessly hard part of a game is selfish ass excludatory thing to say and makes us all look like a bunch of douchebags.
The average age of the gamer is like, if I'm remembering correctly 32 or something. We're not the same kids who; the second they got home from school would play a game until it was time to go to sleep, getting ready for school the next day. Most people in their 30's have kids, partners and other responsibilities they care about that, I'm not going to say get in the way but, as a responsible adult take more precedent then your want of gaming. Now I'm not saying that huge expansive games don't have a place any more, for example a game like fallout 3. F3 always gets its detractors saying it was ruined and made too easy by going to a first person perspective. While I totally understand where this view is coming from you have to really take a look at what state we live in today as a gamer. Games cost £40 new, you want to be able to put it in and be able to play and finish a quest and have fun, making the game arbitrarily hard either through simple AI number tweeks or sometimes through bad controls or design is kind of unacceptable, all it does is artificially make the game longer because you're spending ages either grinding to be an equal level to the enemy you're facing or retrying it over and over so you can get better, or even worse in some games cases where you're just smashing your head against the wall in hopes of getting lucky and getting the win. If we're going to spend so much money and what little free time we have on games they better damn well be fun and rewarding and not pointlessly punishing because some developer doesn't think you're good enough to deserve to win and have fun or wants to make their game seem longer than it actually is with pointless padding and difficulty in place of actual content.
The real challenge now is in multi-player games, for the folks that want a bit more of a competitive aspect they can always take the game online and play against other people, and no matter what anyone says, beating a real life dudes ass will always be more challenging and rewarding then beating a stupidly tough AI that has all the unfair advantages that being a computer gives.
Massively long and nutbusting games will always have a place in modern gaming (demon's souls), but can we please stop bitching that games aren't as "HARDCORE" as they used to be? our industry is huge and the majority of people who buy games do not want those experiences anymore, to say they don't deserve to play because they don't have the time or want to invest in getting stupidly good so they can pass some needlessly hard part of a game is selfish ass excludatory thing to say and makes us all look like a bunch of douchebags.