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Is there any real evidence ?
thark
Member UncommonPosts: 1,188
That games that get more streamlined or a more popular term "dumbed down" actually gets more subscribers or buyers ?
From what I can tell it can just be anything that has drawn many players to a certain type of game, Like known IP , good graphics , etc.. Sure time today is a known factor, and the player base is much larger.
Almost every single game these days are walking this route evidently..So that for me is a sign that the dev's holds some knowledge that this is true. We wan't games that are easy !! Yes ?
But I refuse to believe that the majority can't play a game that will give you a challenge and will take just a wee bit more time to solve than most of todays games, just as an example, 2 of the toughest games released in 2009 -2011 is very popular (Demon Souls and Dark Souls) and they are even both console exclusive. This proves that there is a market for games that will give you a challenge.
I also blame this evolotion as the reason that people never stays for long periods in MMORPG's any more, I use to play Everquest2 for a couple of years, but that was the last time there was any kind of community for a longer period..And YES EQ2 was absolutly best before they started with all the streamlining ideas.
My own teory is that there is so many games flooding the market and people want to try most of them, that keeps players bunny jumping from game to game , a month here and a month there, wich in turn leads to less and less community and guild activitys.
Or is the players of today really this shallow , not wanting any kind of challenge in their gaming ? I mean c'mon, the grownd rule must still be if a game holds a challenge it will entertain you , if it's no challenge it will bore you eventually atleast alot sooner than a game on easy mode. Right ?
Comments
People seem to want instant gratification. I think that all games should include a server where you start at the level cap perfectly geared for the end game raids. All the other servers should be hard and challenging.
Currently bored with MMO's.
Well, there are a few hard games that have sold millions of copies, like the first Diablo.
A fun and well coded game would probably still sell a lot of copies, being hard could actually get many players who are tired of the simple crap. But companies don´t think that way, EA and Activision are only looking for the next 10 million copes or more game, 2,5 million copies just ain´t enough even if the different game actually have a lot higher chanse of succeding since it is different.
Hopefully is easy games just a trend but I fear they are the result of regular Joe´s getting computers instead of gamers.
My theory is that many players are jumping from game to game, searching for the community they well know from their first games (for me it was eq1, but eq2 also rocked, for most it was vanilla wow, I guess). Unforutunately they don't find the community and quit the crap game instantly (*cough*swtor*cough*). Well, but the same behaviour could be interpreted as "the gamers don't want to play the same game for a longer period of time" - and this is the interpretation that leads to easy dumbed down games.
I am still waiting for a community-made game, I lost all hope in the studios with their beancounters.
Currently playing: EverQuest
Waiting for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen
I think the dumbed down games attract more people in the beginning but have a difficult time holding people for long. Loke mentioned Diablo 1. I'd still play that one probably over some of the stuff out today. Never got into D2 much though. I think if you look at the games that have been around the longest even with smaller communities and are STILL successful they are probably better games then the ones with the zerg at the beginning.
the poster formerly known as melangel :P
I'd say its about the same as the BBC and the American television networks putting the best shows on at the ass end of the year since they say people watch less television in the summer months. Of course when they make sure there is nothing on during those months but tripe, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
So do the gaming majority really only want lobotmized games that give instant gratification, or is that all the market is offering to play?
To quote the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead:
The Player: "We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see."
Guildenstern: "Is that what people want?"
The Player: "It's what we do."
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
This is a serious question? Lowering ANY barrier to entry allows more people in. That barrier could be system specs, accessibility or lower learning curve. Most people play a game to be entertained - the easier they can get into the entertanment and the sooner they are entertained the more players the game will have. Mind you, this is all dependent on how good the game is. A crappy game that runs great on a 12Mhz 286 and is easy to learn is still a crappy game, however more people will try it (and possibly continue to play it) than a crappy game that requires the latest in gaming rigs.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Hmm.. Is Diablo really good a measure for a HARD game from back then ?
With this I'm fine, lowereing a learning curve can't be wrong..
But does that also mean the entire game, I would like to argue that players new and old likes to have a challenge more than clicking on "plant seed" once or twice a day in Farmville..I think that atleast a large chunk of todays players needs a wake up call and feel what a game that can pose a challenge feels like, and how fun such a game can be..
Naturally , as you said..A game has to be good aswell..:)
It's fun to win in chess, but if you win all the time because of easy opponents you will eventually get bored and demand a tougher game
Can you think of a co-op or MMORPG'ish game from back then that is harder? I can think of single player games but not multi player ones. I've never really been into FPS style games though so I dunno.
Showing my age here I know, but thinking EQ came out after Diablo. Some of our friends left for EQ, the rest of us quit Diablo due to the stupid amount of hacks. There's Battle Tech also, can't remember if that came out around the same time or after. Loved the old DOS Mechwarrior and played the first in the online co-op series. Can't think of others, I was without a pc at times back then.
UO maybe? I can't really compare as I never played that. NWN?
the poster formerly known as melangel :P
Dark Souls has sold 2 million copies. http://thesilentchief.com/2012/03/17/namco-bandai-shares-dark-souls-worldwide-sales-numbers/
Not bad for a game that prides itself on sadistically killing the player as much as possible. Perhaps all the easy games are an effort to turn gaming mainstream and sell to non gamers. But true gamers are still out there and spend a lot more money on games than your casuals.
Are you a Pavlovian Fish Biscuit Addict? Get Help Now!
I will play no more MMORPGs until somethign good comes out!
Yes, hopefully some devloper sees this and opens his eyes..They really need to let this out on the PC aswell
QUAKE was hard, evidence is here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU
I don't know about you ...but I share that opinion
From the comments:
Screw this new generation of game design.
Back in the days of making games like Quake and Doom, a bunch of programmers, artists, and musicians would all have a get together to come up with a computer game? to make in their free time.
Once they were done, they'd distribute it and people would have a blast.
In the days of AAA game development, this has been switched with an instruction manual of contemporary game design stencils strung together with some backwards theory of what fun is.
I miss fun.
It happens for everything related to entertainment, when a particular medium reaches critical mass and ensured profitability switches from passion and creativity, to efficiency and variability. Heightened popularity is directly related to the necessity to make products more accessible, and accessibility has been found to remove the initial hinderance of consumption, or any manner of frustration. How do you make something accessible for any and every individual to understand? You plan your design based on the most simplistic interface, concept, or principle, so it can be ensured there's no other way in which it can be operated, thereby negating error or confusion.
So, to answer the OP's question, I think entertainment is cyclical (like many things). Popularity ebbes and flows, never remaining constant, though does ultimately effect the accessibility, both good and bad, of our products.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
The goal in chess is to beat the opponent, however most MMO gamers are not playing with 'beat the mob' as their goal. The mob is a means to an end, and that end (or goal) is the next level or the 'endgame' content. With boss mobs, the mob is a challenge because the goal in that scenario isn't to level but to get the item the mob has.
The more the mob is an intrinsic part of the goal, the harder the mobs will be. The more detached the mobs are or the less the mobs mean to the overall goal, the easier the mobs will be. If there is any 'dumbing down' in MMOs, it's not necessarily in the combat but in the very linear combat-only level-based design of most of them.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I believe there is.
A lot of facebook/mobile apps are vastly more popular than any MMO past or current. To me that shows a trend in what's popular vs accessability and how simpler games can have a wider appeal. Granted these apps are not MMOs but there are a handful of MMOs out there that has proven to appeal to other demographics than your typical MMO vet
The core MMO gamers with years of MMO gaming experiences are not impressed with the dumbing down of their genre, but it does seem to appeal to the masses that are not your typical MMO gamers per se. It all boils down to the demographics they want to aim at. If they made a MMO tomorrow aimed at the smartphone gamers, we might just see a game that can topple WoW
It won't be a game I would play but I'm sure the people who love games such as angry birds or farmville would
The proof is in the pudding........ people dont make easy mode because it sells less.....
Don't underestimate how dumb the average gamer actually is; And how they have bee fed on insta win mentality rather than real gameplay with challenges.
The reasons people do not stay with the games is mainly:
Lack of depth
Insta leveling (Max in a Month at the most)
No real community
No real World (Linear and small)
Insta Buy/Sell Auction Houses( I remember the days when part of gameplay in an MMO was to sell goods in town to players
No community it's all about players and guilds, selfish aims and egotists; Nno longer about the Evils of a Fantastic Fantasy setting.
If you want a game that could be fantastic ; Read up on the design for Citadel Of Sorcery ; great concept if it releases...
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Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
I think that what happened is that we all lost that "first time experience" When MMOs offered somethething we'd never done before. WoW captured it for many. But even as WoW began to mature, we got tired of grinding. In response, WoW began to make it easier. Other developers just seemed to coat-tail off that by paying more attention to WoW then their own games and who their own market was.
No one ever bothered to ask Why? I think the players understood the issue, but somewhere, it never reached the ears of the developers. I even remember the "ushering in of this era". WoW TBC patch 2.3 made the game easier and quicker to level through.
Of couse people's initial responce to the reduction of the grind was positive, but that becomes self limiting as we are seeing in current offerings.