Kids have it too easy (old cranky gamer)

It might just be me, but gamers today have it way to easy. With save functions, check points every room, and a retry function when and if you die. With web-sites like gamefaqs and google if you ever get stuck your just a key stroke away from finding the answer.

Where is the satisfaction in the journey? Where is the pride in knowing that you finished something that was challenging? Gamers today will quit at the slightest hint of difficulty. Declaring a game "sucky" or "horrible" because they can't finish it in a day. I ask you how can you truly enjoy something if you are only taking a day to complete it? I mean it took the developers months sometimes years to make it and you honor that with a day's worth of enjoyment? I will not turn this into a blog of "in my day we had to do this..." but just know things where hard! check out any youtube video of any classic Nintendo game if you doubt me.

So what if something is difficult? take your time with it, calm down try it again. sure there are games that crank the difficulty way up for no reason (yes Ninja Gaiden I'm looking at you). But most games can be won with a little perseverance.

Alright I'm done rambling now get off my lawn you meddling kids!

It might just be me, but gamers today have it way to easy. With save functions, check points every room, and a retry function when and if you die. With web-sites like gamefaqs and google if you ever get stuck your just a key stroke away from finding the answer.

Where is the satisfaction in the journey? Where is the pride in knowing that you finished something that was challenging? Gamers today will quit at the slightest hint of difficulty. Declaring a game "sucky" or "horrible" because they can't finish it in a day. I ask you how can you truly enjoy something if you are only taking a day to complete it? I mean it took the developers months sometimes years to make it and you honor that with a day's worth of enjoyment? I will not turn this into a blog of "in my day we had to do this..." but just know things where hard! check out any youtube video of any classic Nintendo game if you doubt me.

So what if something is difficult? take your time with it, calm down try it again. sure there are games that crank the difficulty way up for no reason (yes Ninja Gaiden I'm looking at you). But most games can be won with a little perseverance.

Alright I'm done rambling now get off my lawn you meddling kids!

You already made a blog about this. Here.

Edit: oh wait you didn't. Sorry. For some reason this topic sounds familiar. Back in the old days I had to write down codes to get back to the level I was on yesterday.

Good. Maybe now kids will spend less time on things that don't matter and focus more on the things that do. Why take pride in something as shallow as gaming?

@benefitevil said:

Declaring a game "sucky" or "horrible" because they can't finish it in a day.

Where? Can you point to where this is happening?

@benefitevil said:

Declaring a game "sucky" or "horrible" because they can't finish it in a day.

Really? In general, I find that the opposite is true. If it takes me a month to finish a game, I feel incredibly satisfied for taking that time. Of course, that takes the assumption that said gamer isn't playing for more than 12 hours straight into account, because modern games with less than 10 hours of content usually are not that great.

I don't have a problem with having resources to help me get through something. I don't have time or patience to beat my head against something trying to figure it out, so generally I'll try it on my own until it gets frustrating. But there are exceptions to that. I won't look up how to beat a boss if I feel they're a major point of the game. Dark Souls, for example. I wouldn't look up the solution to a puzzle like in a Braid. Probably other things I can't think of right now.

OP understands why I loved Too Human. I know people hate that game and it did have a terrible control scheme and design flaws, but it was a worthy challenge that made me feel like a total boss. You had to train yourself to play that game. It punished me so brutally sometimes that it felt mean, like games used to. Remember when it felt like the game itself was evil and hated you? Back then, we just had it really bad. Kids today, honestly, just have it reasonable.

Yeah, like everyone else, I find your the sentiment on short games to be the opposite. Did you not see the amount of posts here saying "I'm bored of Diablo III after only 2,983 hours. :("

If you're such an "old gamer", you would know it was all about getting a high score, not finishing the game. You're probably still in your 20's

Most of sonic wasn't very fun the first time, having to play through it multiple times to see the end did not enhance the experience. Doing the same parts over and over against just to die to the same bullshit in most side scrollers was not fun. Also, now there's more to games. A reason to play other than beating your ahead against a wall hoping the wall breaks first. If I want to see the last half of a game, I don't want to have to play through the first half 40 times. Also, maybe you should check out this thread.

False nostalgia. Old games are hard in most cases due to design limitations not intention

Most of what you decry as easy ways out were considered groundbreaking innovations when they first arrived.e.g. I don't think the original Legend of Zelda was worse off from having a save function

Granted some modern games take this stuff too far, but bad design goes both ways.

I only use help when I desperately need it. I like a challenge, but when something isn't explained well enough in a game or I'm just not understanding what the fuck is going on, I'm going to get help, plain and simple. I don't think i'm "spoiled" because of that.

Go play La-Mulana from start to finish and then tell me that game was better off without "save functions, check points every room, and a retry function when and if you die".

I dare you.

(Edit: Not trying to be rude, I seriously dare anyone who believes who "instant retries" are too useful to play this game).

We get these every once in a while. "I'm old blah blah blah- that means I think modern games are terrible"
 
Hi, I've been playing video games since 1989 (who knows, maybe you've been playing longer). 
 
Games are still as good as they've ever been. Sure, the graphics are better, but when you break games down they are still the same. In a lot of ways I'd even say games are more complex now, for good and bad (sometimes that can be bad). 
Also, I've been using Gamefaqs since the mid 90s if I recall, maybe earlier. It's been around for a very long time. I really like when people act like it's new. That's cute. You guys remember the UHS (universal hint systyem)? Ya, I got my UHS files from game faqs. A lot of that is still there. 
 
Sure, if your talking about the 70s then yes. You didn't have online walkthroughs, but then again, you'd only be playing early arcade games and pinball- and if you need a walk through for pinball you need help (i'm being silly). 
So that leaves the 80s. We had PC games (a lot of fantastic RPGs, and Adventure Games), Atari, Nintendo. You could argue a lot of RPGs and definitely adventure games you could really use walk throughs, definitely. Most PC games I still play from the 80s had save files. Ya, in the 80s walk throughs were non existent but a majority of games at the time didn't really need it. I remember in the mid 90s playing Adventure games online, because Sierra had a chat room type system some of the games used so you could chat with people while playing the game. That actually existed in the early 90s. 
 
So, I guess what I'm saying is, I don't get where this talk about "games are easier now" and "we didn't have saves and walkthroughs online." That's just nonsense. Ya, arcade games and console games didn't have those, and some tried using password systems or eventually batteries (for saves). But I would argue most those games didn't need to be saved and the ones that did either had a battery or were crappy games that used terrible code systems. 
 
I don't know about you, but when I reflect back on old games (which I still own and play from time to time) I realize how much better a lot of it has gotten. 
Those are my thoughts.

I have a game. Break all the discs and cartridges in your house. When they're all broken you win. I bet you're not good enough to win at my game.

What? That doesn't sound like fun? Games aren't about fun! They're about overcoming arbitrary obstacles and suffering through stupid nonsense for no other reason to say you did.

Now go break all your games or you're not really a gamer.

No.

Video games have evolved dramatically since "back in your day", and what was acceptable then, wouldn't (and in my opinion, shouldn't) be acceptable today. Not having checkpoints makes a game much more frustrating in a way that, if you do eventually manage to get past it, isn't rewarding in any way. There's not pride in finishing something that was frustrating, just anger.

Especially now, when tons of games are story driven, and the whole point is to experience the story, which may mean a hard part here and there, but shouldn't mean having to go back twenty minutes because of poor check pointing.

On the subject of not having enough at stake, I do think there is a bit of a middle ground here. I agree that checkpoints every five minutes robs death of its meaning, but at the same time I often quit games where I lose and have to start thirty minutes back.

Might we need to put something else at stake instead of progress in a level? Should a lives system be re-instated? Should it cost a limited amount of money to respawn? Death should definitely carry a price but what that could be, I can't think of right now.

Still, at the end of the day it's a proven fact that dying and restarting way back is only frustrating, not rewarding. Finally getting through an area doesn't net most people a sense of achievement - it just makes them turn off the game.

idkfa

Big Bo would think today's games are pretty awesome.