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[Muz]

There is a bit of dumbing down. It's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be, though. If it was really that bad, then I'd be playing only the old games. Fallout may have been dumbed down, but you still get good quality out of say, the Paradox games. The Dominions games continue to get more complex, and so has games like Roller Coaster Tycoon. And on top of it all, you have games like Aurora and Dwarf Fortress, which didn't exist 10 years ago.

A close relative of mine has a MBA, is on the board of a few businesses, and I asked him for an opinion on how to build a game company. His idea is to simply "do what has proven to succeed", because that's how businesses work. He does play games, not too hardcore, more like things like Starcraft, Age of Empires, SimCity, and Superpower 2. But the businessman's job is to sell a product to as many people as possible.

There's no real formula to predict success, only using something that has worked. Blizzard has the closest to a success formula as any other company.. none of their games are too original, but they're the biggest in their genre. They're a newcomer to the MMO field, and now WoW is synonymous with "mainstream MMORPG".

Games are an art entertainment medium. People love something different, but that goes in direct opposition to ways to make money. The designer's job is to make it as beautiful/artistic/fun as possible. The producer's job is try to stretch it out to as wide an audience as possible, and those two will butt heads. Where risk is high, the producer will win. That's why we have indie games.

Personally, I think the best approach is to just take a good concept and tone down the learning curve as much as possible. The "casual gamer" can really get hooked on a game like Dwarf Fortress.. as long as they can love the concept from seeing a trailer/screenshots and understand how to play it in half an hour.

But hey, I failed at X-Com when I was 12 and still had fun. I don't see why games need to be dumb if it takes out from their fun. I've got fairly dumb friends, they loved Baldur's Gate, Stronghold, Age of Wonders, Civilization. By contrast, if you dumb down a game too much (like into Farmville level), you'll lose the college educated audience, and that's the audience that actually has the money to buy your games.

[FatHat]

Big budget games need to be casual (because casual games make more money) or else they will loose money (unwise investment), but with this mentality games with more depth and difficulty are left behind, meaning that in the coming years as budget rises, we will see even more casualising of games and less deep and well thought hardcore games (games like rainbow six 1, deus ex 1 or system shock 1&2).

So, here is a nice question, how develop big budget games that appeal to both crowds of players?.

There's a trend towards simplifying things, but I wouldn't confuse that with "dumbing them down" (although that happens too, sometimes). Personally I like the trend towards simplicity.

A game like "Go" is very simple, at least in terms of rules, but I wouldn't call it "dumbed down", and you wouldn't improve it if you added a bunch of additional complexity. The complexity of a thing has very little to do with its intellectual merits.   

It's like that Einstein quote: "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction."

[bvanevery]

There's a trend towards simplifying things, but I wouldn't confuse that with "dumbing them down" (although that happens too, sometimes). Personally I like the trend towards simplicity.

For instance, Civ V has gotten rid of stacks of military units.  I think it improves the game because it keeps one from piling up units forever, which wastes a lot of real life time.  Also under the old Civ IV system, you had these stacks facing off with all sorts of bonuses and skills.  It could be extremely tedious to attack over and over again to eliminate the pikemen to get to the catapults using your elephant flanking with your knight etc blah blah blah.  Unit skills still exist in Civ V, and you're still trying to match your skills against your opponent's weaknesses, but the matchups are spread out across the map, instead of focused in one hex with a mega-stack.

I've now played 2 games of the Civ V demo.  This time I played Greece and kicked the snot out of Rome.  My goal was to trash at least 1 civilization before Turn 100, when the demo cuts off.  I succeeded.  I would describe my tech tree choices as "misguided" though.  I put a lot of effort into acquiring cavalry technology fairly early, since that's one of the Greek special units.  However, even emphasizing Workers over other things I might have built, I still couldn't get stuff built quickly enough to really make use of cavalry.  All that tech and infrastructure and I only built 1 cavalry.  Its role in conquest wasn't critical, I did most of the job with hoplites.  Which, now that I understand the simplified combat rules, will pretty much do the job if you throw 4 of 'em trained + a Great General at an enemy city.

I think I'll try again, to see if I can sweep the other civs off the continent in 100 turns.  Ironically I might get a certain amount of mileage out of just the demo.  It's taking me ~5 hours to play as is, do I really want a game that's any longer?  Not really.  Aside from chewing up too much time, it isn't all that different from Civ IV.

[s0]

There's a trend towards simplifying things, but I wouldn't confuse that with "dumbing them down" (although that happens too, sometimes).

In my experience it happens most of the time. I don't think it's a trend towards simplicity so much as a trend towards "accessibility" at all costs. Or could you explain to me how the majority of big budget blockbuster games released in the last couple years fit your Go analogy at all? Or how the trend toward automating gameplay and letting the player get through games without even properly understanding the mechanics increases their intellectual merit in any way? Let's not kid ourselves here, new age mainstream games are mostly not simple-but-deep. They're dumb and shallow.

On another note, can't we make a separate Civ 5 thread? All the detailed talk about it seems a bit out of place here.

[Alec S.]

There is a trend in mainstream games to focus incredibly on accessibility, in a way that goes past just making the interface intuitive.  The goal is to make the game as smooth as possible for the player to get through.  Thus mainstream games these days try to avoid the player getting stuck or lost.

Also, on a related note, I think in way by making a game harder you're automatically making it deeper as well. You're giving the player an incentive to really master the mechanics and use them intelligently instead of letting them "get away" with mashing the attack button.

 

I think it often comes down to this.  By making a game so smooth, you take out the challenge.  You still have the illusion of challenge as the player is still interacting with some force opposing them, but the game's are designed to avoid giving them a major problem that forces them to play at a level above what they're used to.  Mainstream games avoid forcing the player to problem solve.  Take the difference between the original Fallout and a modern open world game (even Fallout 3).  Fallout gave you an objective, but didn't explicitly tell you how to do it.  You had to investigate, and in the process you explored the world, met the characters, did side-quests and thus you had the role playing experience.  A modern game will give you an objective and put a waypoint on a minimap to show you exactly where you need to go.

This can be extended to individual moments of gameplay as well, not just overarching missions.  For a game to be deep, it must provide you with opportunities to do interesting things, as well as challenges that require interesting solutions.  X-COM, even with it's deep game systems, would have been rather dull had it been easier.  The fact that a small mistake could lead to the aliens picking off your guys one by one, and the positive feedback loops meaning minor losses can quickly lead to major losses (through the morale system) means that you have to use every tool the game gives you in order to plan your attack. 

(I actually wrote a blog post a little while ago that touched on this topic, if anyone is interested:  http://www.ultimate-nerds.com/archives/434)

[s0]

There is a trend in mainstream games to focus incredibly on accessibility, in a way that goes past just making the interface intuitive.  The goal is to make the game as smooth as possible for the player to get through.  Thus mainstream games these days try to avoid the player getting stuck or lost.

Yeah, modern games seem to aim for a very shallow kind of instant gratification. This also extends to things like the AI-assisted platforming in Assassin's Creed and Uncharted. This sort of stuff is effectively designed to make the player feel like they're better at the game than they actually are. It's very easy to pull off ridiculous acrobatics in those games (probably more so in AC) and the game even "corrects" some of your mistakes behind the scenes.

The problem I have with this kind of thing is that, while it feels "awesome and badass" initially, the effect wears off after some time. You start to see the acrobatics more and more for what they really are: Simple, roughly-timed presses of the jump button with lots of artificial "help" to boot, leaving a bitter aftertaste. This is the exact opposite of a game like Prince of Persia, which AC seems to be informed by in more ways than one. It feels really satisfying once you learn the intricacies of the movement and start moving fluently.

Personally I'd rather play a game that doesn't do everything "grab me by the balls" from the first minute (besides, what kinda masochist wants to be grabbed by the balls anyway?) but focuses on being memorable and satisfying in the long run.

[SirNiko]

What if the player chooses to dumb it down?

Start the game, and you're asked if you want godmode, yes/no. Say no, and it's a normal reflex-heavy action title. Say yes, and you can stride on through with no challenge because you want to (and turn off godmode at any point if you want a challenge again). Is it dumbed down if you can say no?

VVVVVV pretty much does this, and I'd be hard pressed to say it's dumbed or made shallow as a result. Certainly it doesn't hold your hand at any point and several of the optional challenges will require quite a bit of practice to complete.

[s0]

Is it dumbed down if you can say no?

Naw, why would it be? Is Contra dumbed down because it has the 30 lives Konami code? The sort of thing V6 does is pretty much the same, just without the button combinations.

I also liked the way Super Mario Bros. Wii handled things.

[bento_smile]

I figure that AAA games these days are less for gamers, and maybe more for lads to play when they get home from the pub/work or whatever, so they can have a quick cathartic blast and feel like a real man! (When we all know real men play Demon's Souls, amirite?  )

But really, there are many complex games out there, they've just shuffled sideways, or are hiding in unexpected places. Pokemon is seriously damn complex (to the point where I forget how to play it when I'm not playing) and has a crazy level of depth, but is dressed up as a kiddy-kiddy cute game. FF13 has really interesting battles when the game stops holding your hand (as your playing style can effect the success against a boss just as much as the classes that you choose, which I found interesting, as the game forced me to change strategy, but without going against the way I would naturally play).

Then again, I play mostly RPGs, which become more complex and more inpenetrable as time goes on. 

Perhaps, it's fine if some games are simplified? They can act as a gateway drug for more complex games!

/ramble

[SirNiko]

Pokemon strikes me as one of those games that's both easy to play and hard to master. Sort of.

You can play through the whole thing with very little thought if you like, just remember which type is which and bring extra super potions. If you level up enough you can take out any trainer in the game with no effort. However, you can play MUCH more effectively if you choose. It's the difference between the one who has Charmander scratch everything to death over many turns, and the one who wipes out foes with a series of type-matched one-hit-KOs. The player can choose how complex they want the game to be, which is great for little kids who want a simple game, and for older kids who want something with some strategy and substance.

FF13 struck me as the opposite, that there's really not much strategy to be seen. I replayed through recently, with my previous play having been my first blind play-through. Honestly, despite me knowing much more about the game mechanics I didn't feel like my strategic improvements meant much. Using triple-role paradigms like Com/com/com and Rav/rav/rav only slightly improve your battle ability, and frequently switching paradigms to get bonus turns doesn't add up to much. There's very little incentive to do more than mash buttons and make a few superficial decisions like activate a defensive paradigm or use your one super-move (like Highwind or Army of One). Not to mention, the accessories seem really useless in that game, when piling on offensive gear seems to be the optimal strategy.

But, I don't feel like FF13 is an example of purposeful dumbing down of games. I felt like it was  an attempt to create a new combat experience that turned out to not be very deep, and they chose to launch it rather than scrap it and start over. I think Square Enix really does want to create innovative and original games and the willingness to make stuff like FF13 that's way out there is proof of that.

[magnum_opus]

Let's not kid ourselves here, new age mainstream games are mostly not simple-but-deep. They're dumb and shallow.

Let's not kid ourselves here, games are mostly not simple-but-deep. They're dumb and shallow.

There has never been a point in the history of games dating back to the Royal Game of Ur when most games were deep, complex, well thought out and full of nuanced strategy. Except maybe those couple years when every body decided RTS was the only genre worth publishing, but even then they tended to be mostly broad but shallow.

[bvanevery]

On another note, can't we make a separate Civ 5 thread? All the detailed talk about it seems a bit out of place here.

It's an exemplar of a deep AAA game that has undergone some simplifications.  I don't see why you say it's out of place.  There's only a few posts about Civ, the thread has hardly been drowned by it.  What's the alternative, discuss in a vacuum?  We haven't even talked about "Civ Revolutions," which was exactly the kind of attempt at casualization that the OP was interested in.

[bvanevery]

Mainstream games avoid forcing the player to problem solve.  Take the difference between the original Fallout and a modern open world game (even Fallout 3).  Fallout gave you an objective, but didn't explicitly tell you how to do it.  You had to investigate, and in the process you explored the world, met the characters, did side-quests and thus you had the role playing experience.  A modern game will give you an objective and put a waypoint on a minimap to show you exactly where you need to go.

I haven't played either Fallout, I've only looked at some intro movies to see what they're thematically about.  I will say, "guessing the game author's mind" was an endemic problem in classical adventure games.  Problems should have clues and logic so that they are possible for people to figure out.  If it's just something capricious and arbitrary in the game author's mind, it drives any ordinary person up the wall, to the point that they give up.  The reason classical adventure games survived as a genre was that early computer users were extraordinary. They'd bang on totally broken crap just because they could, and just to say that they had.  This isn't depth, but rather obscurity.  A good example of a game based entirely on obscurity (and whimsicality) is Kingdom of Loathing.

[starsrift]

On another note, can't we make a separate Civ 5 thread? All the detailed talk about it seems a bit out of place here.

I agree, I do apologize - I didn't mean to prompt the threadjacking that ensued about adventures in the national forest and how good Civ5 is/n't.


I found this Gamasutra blogpost and the comments that followed to be relevant to this discussion. Perhaps because he echoes my suggestion - it's all about features.

[SirNiko]

Guess-the-intent isn't as crippling in our modern world thanks to the advent of the internet. Solving obscure puzzles was a challenge when it was likely that you didn't know anyone who had the same game, and the only recourse was to call an automated hint line for a fee. These days you can easily jump on a forum to compare notes with other players to get hints, solve puzzles together, or even devise new challenges like Swordless Runs.

Final Fantasy 12 seemed like it was filled with guess-the-intent style puzzles until I realized they had intended to embrace the internet age. The developers knew and accepted that the game would be spoiled by internet wikis and FAQs, so they decided to one-up those players and introduce a whole vector of content aimed directly at them, the Rare Hunts. Monsters that are placed in unpredictable places, have precise, often illogical triggers and are otherwise impossible for a single person to find without a tremendous amount of guessing and tedium. The entire point was that players could discover one, post about it online, and then strike up an animated discussion as you attempt to pin down the why and how about making it appear. For players uninterested in this, the Rare Hunts can be entirely skipped, as they are not required to play through the game or complete the other challenges.

To me this is obscurity done in a way that is actually clever.

[Alec S.]

I haven't played either Fallout, I've only looked at some intro movies to see what they're thematically about.  I will say, "guessing the game author's mind" was an endemic problem in classical adventure games.  Problems should have clues and logic so that they are possible for people to figure out.  If it's just something capricious and arbitrary in the game author's mind, it drives any ordinary person up the wall, to the point that they give up.  The reason classical adventure games survived as a genre was that early computer users were extraordinary. They'd bang on totally broken crap just because they could, and just to say that they had.  This isn't depth, but rather obscurity.  A good example of a game based entirely on obscurity (and whimsicality) is Kingdom of Loathing.

The missions in Fallout were not of this variety.  In fact, they weren't as much puzzles as they were mysteries.  It wasn't that you didn't have clues as to what to do, it's just that those clues were given in a natural way through the game and not given to you outright.  For example (Mild spoiler warning), early on, you need to find a water chip, so you begin investigating and few people have heard of a water chip, but they've heard of water merchants, and that maybe they'd know something.  And like this you get closer to your goal.  Rather than going from point A to point B, you explored and followed up leads.

[magnum_opus]

yeah but the waterchip quest was basically the main plot line over-arching-quest-thing. The majority of quests were "Person X is causing trouble for my *Business* do something about it" which translated pretty directly to go to some building and kill or talk to somebody. Fallout is one of my favorite games but 90% percent of the gameplay was pretty straightforward.

[Alec S.]

True, but these days, it would be rare for even an over-arching quest to not be made of of explicitly stated objectives.  Fallout had small well-defined quests that you could accomplish while trying to figure out what to do about your larger, less explicit mission.  A modern game would be afraid of making the main quest have any point where you don't know exactly what you need to do.

[bvanevery]

Guess-the-intent isn't as crippling in our modern world thanks to the advent of the internet. Solving obscure puzzles was a challenge when it was likely that you didn't know anyone who had the same game, and the only recourse was to call an automated hint line for a fee. These days you can easily jump on a forum to compare notes with other players to get hints, solve puzzles together, or even devise new challenges like Swordless Runs.

I say it is still bad game design.  I'm not interested in having my play experience interrupted so that I can scour the web trying to RTFM on what the hell is going on.  That's way too much like what I do for a living, banging my head against programming APIs that I ultimately end up needing outside information for, because TFM sucks.  I used to try to be "tough" and figure out adventure games without any outside help.  I got over that years ago, because eventually I noticed that the state of the art in adventure games never improves.  There's always some head banger puzzle because not enough people write adventure games, so the genre never improves over what it was in the mid-1990s.  Imagine if there was no film industry as we know it today, if films were just specialized entertainments that not many people partook of.  Well, you probably wouldn't have many good screenwriters, if any at all.

It could be that there's a demographic of player who thinks that scouring the internet and asking other players how to get through the game is actually fun, and sort of the whole point of playing games.  The Minecraft audience springs to mind.

Final Fantasy 12 seemed like it was filled with guess-the-intent style puzzles until I realized they had intended to embrace the internet age. The developers knew and accepted that the game would be spoiled by internet wikis and FAQs, so they decided to one-up those players and introduce a whole vector of content aimed directly at them, the Rare Hunts.

So my question is, do such players ever "graduate" ?  Is it the province of people who are young, who aren't worried about their time being "wasted," and who don't have jobs that make them look up stuff all day long?

To me this is obscurity done in a way that is actually clever.

To me that's not clever, it's just a social networking business model.  As I said before, there's nothing clever about Kingdom of Loathing.  It's entirely based on "be the first among your peers to iterate through the time consuming obfuscations until you've discovered something someone else hasn't."  Then possibly you get a special ability that other players don't get, like a rare item or whatnot.

[bvanevery]

True, but these days, it would be rare for even an over-arching quest to not be made of of explicitly stated objectives.  Fallout had small well-defined quests that you could accomplish while trying to figure out what to do about your larger, less explicit mission.  A modern game would be afraid of making the main quest have any point where you don't know exactly what you need to do.

Possibly for good reason.  I destroyed the Oblivion DVD because I "fell off" the main quest.  It was clear to me what the main quest was, and what I needed to do next to advance it, but my Level 1 Thief was certainly not tough enough to kill the bad guys I needed to.  So I did what thieves are supposed to do: I looked in the towns for chests and items to steal.  Little did I know that the drops from chests were scaled to my level, so that it was impossible to make any significant economic progress that way.  I ground and ground and ground, all the while dealing with the most inane lockpicking interface ever invented in gamedom.  I could not figure out where the Master Thief was to get into the Thieves Guild, and everything I tried just burned up more keys, which were not in infinite supply.  It was so inane that I set a record for fastest destruction of a game, 30 hours from purchase!

A friend of mine played the game, didn't start with a Level 1 Thief, and enjoyed himself just fine.  I'm quite sure that I found the worst case path through the initial game, the bit that the developers really didn't playtest or think about.  So, yeah, guidance is important because otherwise the player bloody well hates your game and tells everyone what a piece of crap it is.  Umm, but Oblivion sold millions of copies and I played the game a few years after it was released, so they won the gamble in my case.  I guess your game can have all kinds of dealbreaking warts as long as the core of the game is sufficiently populist.