Difficulty of Games today

Hi,

since there are many game devs here, I was wondering what your thoughts are on the difficulty (or lack there of) in games today.

http://www.p4rgaming.com/majority-of-gamers-today-cant-finish-level-1-in-super-mario-bros/

Please read the article and share thoughts. (I found it at random, so I know as much about it as anybody who reads it)

Are gamers skills in decline or is it society as a whole? Do most people not want to be challenged anymore, but would rather simply be entertained? Do developers feel it is too risky to make their game quite challenging, living in constant fear that they might "frustrate" the player?

Cheers!

 

I think it is because gamers are getting younger and younger. I mean back when mario bros got release on the gameboy most gamers where 16-18+ and lets be honest the older you are the better you are at games or should i say the better you can handle a diffecult level without a mental breakdown. And since nowdays alot of kids own PS4 Xbox1 or a PC they form a big part of the market. And if they dont like to play diffecult games, game developers wont make diffecult games because then the biggest part of the potential buyers wont like it because its to diffecult. Atleast this is my opinion.

 

The thing is the original super mario bros was S*** in terms of conveyance. How are you even supposed to know it was a mushroom from the sprite, much less figure out what the mushroom is even supposed to do. How do you learn that a goomba is harmful and the way you fight them is by landing on them. Kids in the eighties learned how to play SMB either through the manual or another reference, or by slamming their head into a wall and gleaning whatever information they could out of the system piece by piece.

As much as the quote from Iwata assumes it's because of difficultly, I would say it's just as likely that the play-testers weren't accustomed to the logic (i.e. they weren't taking LSD) and weren't able to make sense of the game.

 

I remember buying Total Annihilation (on CD) and spending the first day just reading through the included guide/manual. I spent a lot of time referencing it until I knew every command by heart. And back then I was an impatient kid just like all the rest.

Things are just different today. Then we only had a few games, I (at least) didn't have the internet to get help, and the alternative was going outside and playing in a tree. It wasn't even that I was highly motivated, it was there there was no alternative. It was either real life or finish this level in Castle of Illusions. No matter how many tries it took Illusions was still more interesting than that tree.

Today we are drowning in alternatives, walkthroughs are just a click away, and we have all been trained in what to expect from a good game.

However if a game captures a kids imagination they will still invest the time to learn how to play it. When one of my kids was five he had only explored the world of Minecraft. Through mods & watching youtube vidoes he learned about portal. After a few months he worked it up in his mind that he just had to play it. When he turned six I gave it to him. The first night he found it so hard that he barely made any progress and cried form the disappointment. But I left him with it and to everyones surprise after a month or so he finished it solo and now designs his own levels.

So i don't think all is lost. But I do think things are different - and hopefully for the better.

 

And if I had tried to play Call of Duty when I was playing SMB, I wouldn't have been able to make it past level 1.

I think "difficulty" is a difficult trend to spot, because of a lot of variables, like experience with similar games, that make it hard to quantify a game's difficulty. If you've never played an RTS, Starcraft will be very difficult. If you've been playing RTS's since Dune, Starcraft would be trivial.

 

I have definitely noticed gamers are much less skilled today than in the past. When I made my little Christmas game recently I was amazed at how so many people found the game so difficult. Yet at the same time when I had some people who are "old school" gamers (just like me) play it they either made it to level 7 or 8 on their first play or even won the game. That is because I kept making it easier and easier based on people saying it is so hard.

I don't get it really. lol When I a was kid playing games it was very common to spend weeks even months playing a game trying to beat it. Of course, many games you could not even win but we counted making the score flip out or reset to 0 as "winning". We fully expected to spend our time to learn the game environment. To test what we could and could not do. To actually work out strategies to use to be successful at the game. That was a very big part of the game experience! We certainly never expected the game to hold our hand and tell us "you can move by pressing the left or right arrow keys. Try moving now." ... "oh no there is a wall in your way. Fortunately you can jump by pressing the space bar. Try it for yourself". Honestly I don't think there can be any doubt about how "dumbed down" games have become.

 

I think it's too broad to say games are dumbed down. Theres always going to be a SMB, vvvvv, Super Hexagon, etc.

Edit* Oh, and Hotline Miami. I recently played that though and I found it extremely fun, even though I rarely play violent games these days. Half of the fun was from it being so unforgiving, but getting you straight back into the action with minimal interruption. You really got to master those levels.

 

Perhaps but these days I think it is seen as actually being good game design to do things like "you can move by pressing the left or right arrow keys. Try moving now." ... "oh no there is a wall in your way. Fortunately you can jump by pressing the space bar. Try it for yourself". Or providing other methods of hand-holding providing tips and so forth anything to save the player from having to think and work out problems and explore. To me that is games being "dumbed down". I agree it can go too far the other way too. But for people these days to actually think that SMB having hidden blocks that could only be found by adventurous players jumping around was bad design I just think they are missing the point. It's encouraging and rewarding players to explore the game world. Of course, we all view things differently. To me that kind of thing is cool. I want to be able to figure things out for myself. To explore and find things. To not have a game treat me like I am a complete idiot.

 

Absolutely agree wholeheartedly. I'm not sure if it's a societal trend as well, but gamers (and consequently games) have become dumber and dumber continuously for many years, now. I was given a Nintendo at age 4 and had no instruction, yet I recall finishing the entire game wihout major roadblocks due to anything but lack of skill which I then practiced until I could win. Same thing with he original Zelda! Nowadays gamers seem to think they should just win no matter what they do, just for playing. And if the game doesn't reward them for messing up with flashy achievement unlocks, it sucks. Now, I'm not saying one hundred percent of gamers are like that, but it seems to have to become a very vast majority.

This is especially and hilariously apparent in mmorpg pvp and top tier raiding, for example, where if you then go PUG a run you witness the true horror of just how clueless the players often are there.

/rant.

Oh, and just to add, to the person saying gamers are younger than ever, I have read statistics stating the opposite, that the average age is getting higher in fact (not that I think age has much to do with this, bar a toddler attempting to play).

 

PUG runs are indeed hilarious, but honestly - what is the alternative?

From the linked article

Blizzard (Nintendo, et al) have to give them something if they expect them to pony up $15 per month. Or do they put a "no scrubs" sticker on their box and lose the income? That's corporate suicide. The reality is that catering for 'filthy casuals' is now the norm. They are the majority, and to be competitive you have to appease them. That's never going to change. And I don't see anything wrong with it.

But the long tail is still there, and the hardcore gamers will still get their games. They won't be the majority, but why should that matter? You still get to play Dark Souls, so don't worry that someone else is having fun facerolling some cutscene bloated FPS.

Right?

 

I would be willing to bet if you ever did any focus/play testing, you would have a very different opinion of what dumbing down is. It's easy to assume that if you locked the player in a room, it wouldn't take long to figure out that they need to pick up the stick, equip it, get it lit by the fire, and use it to burn off what is in the way. Shouldn't take more than five minutes...
...
...
...
3 hours later...
Oh, thank god he finally picked up the stick. Now all he has to do is open the equip... He's never opened the equipment menu once and there's nothing to tell him what button it's bound to. Oh god...
...
7 hours later...
Sweet jesus, come on baby. Just get that stick over to the fire, and... No, you gotta turn a little.. There, now, just, hold, no, just. WAIT, no don't drop... Heh, heh, heh. It clipped through the ground. Ha, ha. I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna F***ING HANG THAT LITTLE S*** WITH A CONTROLLER CABLE. I'M SENDING HIM TO HELL WHERE ALL HE'LL BE ABLE TO PLAY IS SIMON'S QUEST UNTIL HE GROWS A PAIR....

-This has been a RockoDyne presented forum drama-

 

That's funny. I see what you are saying. Certainly I wouldn't hide the controls. The interface needs to be clear. Still there is a difference between showing a screen that lists the controls or even allows players to configure the controls and stopping them every few seconds with a live tutorial / tip how to move, how to jump. It is just hard to imagine that people would not realize if they are playing a computer game for example to use the arrow keys or wasd to move. Or press keys to figure out which ones. When I start any game I press every key just to see what it does if anything. And the other things .. I guess I just wonder how is it that we figured out what to do, how to do it and even when to do it without youtube videos or the Internet at all for that matter? Through trial and error mainly. At least I played many games that way. I think there is room for improvement in the old games for sure. But still there just seems to be such a huge difference in abilities, perseverance or something else. Not sure exactly what but there is definitely something different with the modern gamers it seems. Not all of course. I am sure there are many who figure thungs out instead of giving up in 60 seconds never to play again or heading to the Internet looking for walkthroughs.

 

I've played a lot of games that are difficult without being fun. Any recent game that is 'hard' usually is hard by limiting your resources. It's being overdone and it isn't really fun to want to manage the 1 clip of ammo you get per level to try and figure out which enemies you can and cannot take down.

I see that a lot and it's shocking.

 

It's not like xbox live isn't full of twelve year-olds playing multiplayer though. The landscape of gaming has radically changed in the last twenty years. The outlet for skilled play isn't typically in singleplayer anymore where the emphasis is much more likely on the story.

Something to consider though is why and how these games were difficult in the first place. Almost all of the old games had completely self serving reasons for being difficult, usually either to pad the length or to keep on dropping quarters in.

You're still making assumptions about the game, and complaining that it's hand-holding when it makes no assumption about what the player assumes. Modern games rarely try to betray the collective game sensibility, but no one would want to actively exclude people just because they aren't chimed in.

Just binge on a bunch of sub-par n64 games and you'll probably agree much more modern design practices... assuming you don't go insane. Bit of an occupational hazard though.

 

Games have gotten easier, partly because they've become more social, and more casual, and more mobile, all of which contributes to trying to make them 'friendlier' and 'more accessible' and less likely to be dumped after 1 minute (so as to make money). This does usually erode 'difficult challenges of skill' etc which were more typical of retro games. But some people are still making difficult games .... e.g. super meatboy? various shootemups? The shootemup I'm making is difficult - it's meant to be a challenge, not easy.

 

I am just trying to understand why the games are becoming so much easier. I have an NES and Genesis and still play the games as well as retro games on the computer. There is no doubt there have been some good improvements in game design over the years. But still I am trying to understand why are the games these days made to be so much simpler and guiding the player along so much. Maybe it is just to try to appeal to more people? Or do gamers truly need to be told things like "you can move", "you can jump"?

 

That is what I was thinking too. Maybe it is just to try to open up the industry to appeal to more people.

 

When you look at indie game devs that are making great games that are getting widespread appreciation, it's not for extremely easy games that hold your hand. Consider:

• Minecraft: Many people cannot last a single night the first play. There are many things to learn and they are not shown to you immediately. You are expected to experiment and learn the environment, that's part of the enjoyment.
• Dwarf Fortress: I've never played this game. But it's slogan, at least in my impression, is "dying is fun".
• Super Meat Boy: Platform game where most attempts result in you being turned to ground beef.
• Castle Crashers: Just play a solo game, no friends to help. Enjoy death early and enjoy it often!

These are just a couple of games, but I just read here that vvvvvv is difficult. I don't believe for a second that everybody wants easier and easier games. Sure, maybe on mobile and browser based platforms there's a large market for that. But for a game you're going to sit down with for a while and really explore, and especially for a game that requires you to hold a joypad in your hands, why would you want it to be so easy that you figure everything out in a couple of hours and then go "booring"?

I think there's a market for very challenging games, but interestingly enough I think most devs would have a rough go of making a challenging, but fair game that is "easy to play, difficult to master". I believe I know everything there is to know to make this type of challenging game and even as I work on one, I still find myself scratching my head at times, wondering what it needs to be *that* much cooler. Each thing I discover that adds feels like a monumental achievement.

Then consider, it's not just that these types of games (challenging but fair, the right balance) are difficult to produce (they are) but they also take time to tweak and improve, contrast that with a touch game that you set out to create in 8-11 days that relies solely on "addicting" gameplay elements like short feedback loops. It's clear why most people go with the latter.

So, that's why I think games are getting easier: It's hard to make hard games that don't push people away.

 

The old Marios use holding down the jump button to jump higher, this isn't used hardly at all in modern games(perhaps Meat boy is an exception) people are not used to that and thus suck. I'd like to see some people play Donkey Kong and see if they fair better( As Marios jump is always the same)

 

The new Castle of Illusion does it, probably the original did too but I cannot remember, and so does Rayman.

The main motivating factors seem to be speed runs (and in rayman origins case, specially designed timed levels to unlock the skull teeth), i.e. the levels have a 'rhythm' to them for an additional layer of replayability and fun.

Most casual players aren't coming back to speedrun master the levels to collect all/hidden gems to unlock every last achievement. And in raymans origins case IIRC, those skull teeth levels were optional. So the press to hold jump mechanic was also largely optional.

 

The gaming landscape is changing. When I was a kid playing stuff like the 48k Spectrum, Commodore Amiga and later my Sega and Nintendo (before that my Game & Watch and Grandstand & Tomy games etc.) At any one time I'd have one or two games I'd basically have to play over and over again and I got my hand to eye co-ordination to the point where I could beat the average game in an evening. I got to the end of Supermario World and beat Bowser in one 24 hour sitting. My best friend couldn't believe it and actually came to my house to see it for himself the next morning when I told him over the phone that I'd beaten it.

That was before any of us were on the internet and there weren't tip-sharing websights, walkthroughs or quick-runs. I was something of a gaming legend among the kids in my local community but really all it came down to for the most part was the amount of time I spent playing. I'd play all day and all night. It was almost all I did. Play video games and read.

Today we have a huge number of games available to us (including that back catalogue) and so much choice that if something gets too frustrating we'll drop it and move onto something else. That's the market voting with its feet. It's not a bad thing it's just change and in my opinion a change for the better.

Having said that there will always be new players for whom those old mechanics are still fresh. They probably might not feel fresh to the majority of gamers because the majority of gamers have been around longer.

Some players want dexterity, reflex and reaction challenges while others just want to be entertained. I personally used to be one of the former but now I just want an immersive experience to enjoy without all of the effort and frustration. Maybe if I'd had more choice when I was younger and choice of less difficult & more varied gaming experiences I wouldn't have developed the level of hand-to-eye co-ordination that I did.

The medium's reached a point where it can tell a story and create an experience and the audience has reached a point where they're looking for more variation, more innovation and less boredom and frustration.

As an example, I was playing uncharted three recently and I'm at the point where I'm running through a bar and duck around a bad guy, through a door into a hallway, up the stairs, I see ahead of me a high window, I'm heading right for the window, I press the action button and Drake attaches himself to a banister on my right. He gets caught, it's a fail state, I have to do it all again. To me that kind of thing feels like a design flaw, especially in retrospect, and as game-play is continually smoothed and streamlined, in retrospect that kind of thing is going to stick out like a sore thumb, as a rough edge, more and more.

Another example: I was playing Haunting Ground recently and it's like the URU/Exile era of Myst meets the original Clocktower. It's basically like trying to play Myst III while the Slenderman chases you and for me that really spoils the game. I'd personally like a cheat that lets me remove the antagonist all together so that I can just enjoy the puzzles, the atmosphere, environment, the aesthetic, story and cutscenes.

 

Things are evolving. I would not pinpoint the decreased difficulty to just one single aspect. I don't think it is just wider audience. It's probably not just 'casual' gaming, either. It's evolution. When gaming started out it was trial and error and still pretty much a niche market. The people who played games wanted to play games. The people who made the games tried new things and had to invent gameplay much more than today. Today mechanics are estabilshed and refined. A few decades ago they still had to be established.
Also beck in the days it wasn't as easy to try new things as it is today. Creating games is much easier and modular than it was back then. The hardware has changed - the audience has changed - the perception has changed.

Hideo Kojima ditched David Hayter in favor of Kiefer Sutherland for MGSV (which is not an easy game, btw) because the faces are motion captured as well - there is actual performance. The gameplay is refined to a very complex point as well. But MGS knows its audience and what they expect. MGS players expect a challenge. But it's super balanced and refined (at least based upon Ground Zeroes). How many games from the Super Mario NES era had that amount of time, know how, man power and refinement put into them?

Then as a contrast Super Meat Boy was mentioned. I would also like to throw The binding of Isaac in there as well - which is super unfair at times but I still have 40+ hours of playing on record. Or La Mulana ...

Gaming has come a long way and isn't just the mere emulation of arcade machines at home (which btw were designed to be super difficult so that people threw more money into them - ever played Metal Slug?). The genres have evolved and split into several categories for several audiences.
It may be that even the difficult games are still easier than the difficult games were a few years ago but I would say that is because of the things we learned about design like guiding the players. Other games are deliberately more easy to make them enjoyable for people who play for different reasons like story or sheer playing experience. Again other games are made purely to be addictive and suck the money out of players' pockets but that's another topic.

All in all I think that the games that were successful and playable and balanced 10 - 20 years ago were still the ones that did a few things right to guide the player in a new and different way. And these things prevailed and are merely used to different degrees in different projects today.

So would I say that games are easier in general today? Yes - but it's a smaller fraction than a lot of people make it out to be. And I think it's a good thing, too.

 

Sometimes games just need to give the player more and more direct information. I really don't like having to check walkthroughs, for me it's one of the worst things to have to break immersion to do but you can't blame people for doing it.

I spent a couple of years playing nothing but adventure games and I can honestly say (and I know they're an easy target but that's not my point) I don't think I found one that didn't have a programming issue or a design flaw that rendered it impossible to complete without the use of a walkthrough and not because of the adventure-game type logic but basically because of errors in the code / broken code and design flaws that would mean you just wouldn't be able to finish it without a walkthrough. Needless to say a puzzle game that's challenging you to find solutions to broken and therefore unsolvable puzzles is not a well-made game.

Edit: a couple of notable/unusual exceptions: Zork Nemesis had an unsolvable puzzle the solution to which was using a 'simplify' magic spell (I was sure it was unsolvable and when I checked a walkthrough, sure enough it was). It also had magic that worked on purple items but which didn't work on most of the purple items in the game so I'd basically discounted the magic as a reliable solution. It also had something that was supposed to be a never-ending hallway who's exit appeared to you if you did a 180 but that just looked like the code had glitched. Having said that Zork Nemesis is among my few "would play again" favourite, adventure titles.

Also, the microbe puzzle in 7th Guest, which I was convinced was impossible. That one it turns out may actually be impossible to begin with but the difficulty level drops iirc each time you come back to the puzzle (again, something I found out by checking a walkthrough).

Another more modern example is a first person action game I was playing where I was absolutely determined that I would not check a walkthrough (something I'd just become accustomed to doing by that point). I got stuck on what was either the first or second level (I don't remember which). It was set on a boat and set partially underwater (the lower sections of the level being completely submerged and the higher level being exclusively above water).

Sure enough I reached a point where I could go no further. I was in an unclimbable vertical shaft up to the waist in water, having navigated my way there through fully and partially submerged rooms; I could see no way forward. So I backtracked and systematically covered every inch of the level more than once until I found a place in the environment where I could squeeze my way out of the level through the level geometry. This I did and proceeded to climb and swim around the outside of the level to trace where it was I was supposed to be going (the water extended below and to the sides of the level and for the most part still functioned well enough as water that I could swim around the sides and the underside of the level).

This I did until I could determine that I was indeed supposed to use the shaft to move forward so I got back inside the level and went back to the vertical shaft and finally just had to check a walkthrough in order to move forward and the solution was to crank a valve wheel in the vertical shaft to open a water pipe to flood the room so that I could swim up to the next part of the stage. There was no indication that the crank was operable or could be interacted with and it was totally out of character for the game, plus the odds of there being a random water pipe just where I need it, for me was far enough outside of the realm of probability for me to even consider it a reasonable possibility.

Within the context of the game it just looked like more scenery and as such I'd simply just overlooked it. It was right in front of my eyes but I just wasn't seeing it because there was nothing in the game to suggest it was anything more than set-dressing. Older games were much more basic in their form, design and presentation and you could bet that a valve that could be turned would have stuck out like a sore thumb.

In modern games we have much more detailed and more cluttered environments but we also have object gleam/shimmer, etc. to draw attention to necessary objects, and through experience (mainly the one detailed above) I personally believe that the player's experience isn't going to be any less for these things being there (in fact absolutely the opposite).

Ultimately we have difficulty-settings and some games give the option to disable object shimmer/gleam so that's one way of catering to a wider market. These days I set everything to easy because the games I play I play for the atmosphere the setting and the story and I don't want to have to keep jumping through hoops and restarting just to enjoy the parts of the game I'm interested in, but that's me: I'm not into competitive or reaction-based gameplay.

 

I'm not sure where you've drawn your conclusions from. There's no evidence that people are consuming these more "evolved" games more than "unevolved" games like Super Mario Bros that I have seen. Flappy Bird is extremely challenging, Angry Birds was very simple but at the same time to get good at it would take time and practice.

I see a recurring theme where people equate hollow, gameplay-light, cinematic-heavy "games" as the natural evolution of the medium. I would caution that when games stray from gameplay and start competing with film, they will decline amongst this audience. Why? Because the folks who embrace this rapid change in games have no evidence of being loyal to anything. Once movie games stop wowing them with their distinctions from film, dev costs will increase to expand gameplay (La Noir, Gta 5) and eventually, sales will flatten. You speak of trends and fads, yet you sit upon one now.

I believe the movie games thing will experience a drop in popularity and become a niche market in my lifetime.

Meanwhile, as the average gamer age increases, where is all the young blood entering the scene? They're playing social games with their friends, as kids would tend to prefer to isolated solo play. Why would they naturally "evolve" into guys who play 40 hour crime dramas? So you see, things will come to an end.

And a new chapter will begin. Games that are increasingly social, that fit into people's lives rather than put themselves at odds with having a life, are preferable. All trends point here. Mobile popularity, means you can be around other people while you play. Online means you can be playing with other people. Therefore, gaming evolution will be mobile + online + hands free. Glasses would be cool.

And no, there's no reason why games will then, therefore, become easier to allow you a more seamless storytelling experience, because there won't be a crazy emphasis on story over play. They don't have to be as hard as old school quarter eaters, but they aren't slow or easy.

Play SSB with a 9yo some time. Go play CoD with a 12yo. If you think you'll win and you've been playing movie games and RPG's, you're in for a rude awakening. In other words... don't be such a "grandpa".

 

dark souls

 

1. Why were games hard in the first place?
2. Were they fair, or was their difficulty bullshit?
3. When people get hung up, was that even intended to be an issue?

Thing is, as much as my drama was comedic, it's happened before. In fact it happens in just about any and every game that gets playtested early. You will frequently see people get hung up on something that isn't skill based, isn't a puzzle, and isn't even meant to be an issue, but because the player doesn't see the ladder/climbable surface, they will spend two hours jumping on random geometry in the room before giving up and backtracking through the ENTIRE EXPLORABLE GAME to that point. These sorts of issues are nothing but wasted time and don't have any benefit to the player. This has been much of the driving force behind modern design. Essentially, if an element isn't important or central to the game, like difficulty or exploration, it shouldn't be there at all, otherwise you just waste development cycles on something that isn't important and likely won't make the game any better.

 

What the hell? Did you actually read my post???
I never said any of the things you state.

I said: Gaming genres evolved into many categories. Mobile and social games - the thing you see as the only evolution (which is debateable, btw because you pretty much disregard at least the whole current indie market with that) is one genre I mentioned as one of many. And in the whole thing I never said that I like or see the future of games in interactive movies. They are also just another one genre - a genre which I personally don't even like very much, personally.

I also said: Gamedesign evolved into much more established aspects. What I mean is - among other things clearer color or lighting guidance in levels which wasn't as present back then. Giving players better feedback. Using conventions people can recognise from other games. This is something that's more present across the board of games and genres and audiences.

I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what gave you the impression that I was talking about cutscene heavy games or non socials. Even more so how you got the impression that I was talking about any genre exclusively. In fact my post was pretty much the opposite of what your reply implied to be.

 

A no scrubs label? No, of course not. However, there's only so easy you can make something before it ceases to have any meaning, or even be considered gameplay instead of just basically watching. Cmtinually coddling players in an MMORPG to that point, which is basically what is often done, makes it pretty shocking to me as I said that some lack such basic capability to even move their character by the time they are already at maximum level and joining large raid content at endgame. I've seen many people so appallingly poor at doing even the most basic things that I hope they bought their account on eBay last night , or else wonder how they even make a living so they can eat and survive in real life.

I've seen some games with encounters you can nearly afk through but require them to be done solo in main quests in recent mmo's, that were then widely complained about as being nigh impossible by the majority of players until being nerfed multiple times. One poignant example was, in Elder Scrolls Online, where a high level main quest has you fight with a necromancer named Mannimarco, built up as an incredibly powerful enemy. He was put in as a decent difficulty, perhaps slightly above what most good players would be comfortable with beating, but this served an important role in the story as well as gameplay by requiring players to make sure they had created viable characters for encounters later that were even tougher. By the time the game released, it was nerfed at least six times In various patches, and one beta tester determined that you had to only do about five percent of what an appropriately built character could at thatt point in the game. Yet, after launch, it was still widely complained about as being impossible to beat. It was then nerfed another time, and then the crowd started complaining the very next one was too hard. This happened multiple times in turn until they eventually Nerfed the entire endgame quest content called veteran zones in the same fashion.

 

"Hideo Kojima ditched David Hayter in favor of Kiefer Sutherland for MGSV (which is not an easy game, btw) because the faces are motion captured as well - there is actual performance."

I don't know, this started me thinking how things have changed. And I was considering the "hand holding" in games. And also, considering the mobile games out there... it's a lot to think about. But I don't see games becoming easier except movie games where you just glide along, following prompts. Mobile games aren't necessarily super easy, either. Casual is easier, I guess. But then again, it's pretty impossible to reach the end of Candy Crush.

I guess my point is that huge movie games are probaby getting way easier, casual games are a little easier but the vast majority of everything else is hard if you try to perfect your skills.

So since only movie games are hand holding experiences likely to become almost non games in the future, seems to me the entire discussion is really about those games in particular. And the effects they have on the choices other game developers are making to try and emulate them.

Edit: also, casual gameplay needn't be equated to an "easy" game, easy to play is different than easy to complete, or easy to win. Then and there's the case of sandbox games where the can be as difficult as you want them to be. And then there are social games where the difficulty level is basically other people. So yes the only place where I see game getting ridiculously easy are in the realm of storytelling experiences designed to reach the broadest possible audience.

Edit 2: yes, indie games with no difficulty because you can't win or lose... I suppose I might disregard indie games with zero challenge or very little challenge. They wouldn't exist if it wasn't for people trying to tell stories through games. again... how many people are comfy enough with games that they're going to play a game for the story and characters. You probably think it's a lot. But, it isn't. And it's going to shrink. What does this have to do with the topic? Again, if a game evolves into this easy thing where there's no challenge, there's got to be some other draw... art? visuals? Music? Story?

Sounds like a movie.

Wanna know what's better than a game that plays out like a movie? A movie. Or what's better than a game that's really just a short story? Episode of a tv show.

So, it's not "evolving" if games lose the challenge/difficulty... that's the only thing that makes them worth your time to begin with. Not a good thing, definitely.

 

Blizzard is taking a new approach on this with Diablo 3, by nerfing the players too. With all of the crap people gave alien : colonial marines I'm surprised that the interesting gameplay that completely vanished from the D3 teasers isn't talked about more. Granted, there's a completely different team working on the game that has no idea what they're doing, but it's still surprising.

Everything in the game has been watered down to the point where the key inputs would look identical to that of someone playing a game by telltale, yet they still find ways to nerf the game, then buff players, then buff monsters, then nerf both.

 

Wrong. Super Mario Bros was a stand up arcade before the NES existed. People learned how to play it only 2 ways:

1) Playing
2) Watching someone else play

There were no instructions or references. And the reason the game was a little difficult was so that it could earn more quarters.

When they made the NES version it was actually a lot easier on certain levels (which I don't understand). I mean you can keep playing as often as you like until you beat it. Why make it easier?

 

You can keep playing but you have to start over. There were no continues so it's try and die all the way from the beginning again. As a kid it took me long enough to beat the first Super Mario Brothers. So making an easier version is pretty sure a logical balancing design choice for the system and the game rules as a home entertainment system.

Keep in mind that the original SMB2 was originally not released outside of Japan because it was deemed too difficult for the players.

 

I think one of the reasons games might be easier, is that there are way too many games, cheap and free.

The way I remember it, kids would gather and talk about a single game. I specifically remember people talking about mortal kombat and super mario world for snes, for long periods of time, and this would go on for months.

Of course you'd want to beat such games against all odds, investing your time meant you got to brag about getting to a new level, or mastering a fatality move. Such gamer cred!

Does that still happen today? I mean there are a bizillion games now, too many to master them all, and so little time. If a game gets frustrating, move to the next!

Games now are less about challenge, and more about reward... in other words, throwing as much dopamine at your face as it's psychologically possible.

 

Then why are there games with high challenge and high scores that millions of people have downloaded?

Again, where are people looking for these conclusions? I think some aren't looking at the complete picture.

 

Also keep in mind that the original SMB is still highly difficult and it's the most popular, best selling game ever.

It was not the first video game.
It was not the first home console game.
It is just everybody's all time favorite.

And part of that is that it's difficult, but fair. Easy to play, hard to master.

It's not the difficulty, it's that most people's "difficult" comes across as cheap. I agree, removing cheapness from games is evolution.

 

I think your thinking of Mario Bros. not Super Mario Bros. After questioning my childhood, I checked wikipedia and didn't see anything about SMB being an arcade game, so I'm assuming you are thinking of MB.

Either way it doesn't discredit that most people typically learned the basics of how to play the game second hand.

And yet I look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games and see five Wii games in the top eleven (ten if you fold both mentions of tetris in on themselves) that are only there because of the filthy casuals. Never mind the fact that SMB was probably sold bundled with your NES. So if you're trying to equate difficult with good, or even difficult with what people want, your not exactly making a good case.

 

Screw Wikipedia. It's wrong. I played it in the arcade tons, it was EXTREMELY popular in the arcades.

 

As most things in life, this is not black OR white.

Two reasons:

1) Surely the absolute total of games aren't following this... "high reward & low challenge" trend. As a matter of fact it's only a trend, right? At least many people seem to think that, and I feel the same way. Not sure if there's empiric evidence about this.

2) The trend is not about complete and absolute lack of challenge. If a game is too easy, it becomes boring. It's more about "hooking" the player in a market with a lot of competition. Constantly rewarding the player is one way to make a game addictive, but not the only way.
Difficult games can still make it. The "challenge" factor is still there, everyone loves a challenge, but first... you gotta hook the player somehow. Rewarding the player is one way... but , or else player will get frustrated, and he has a looot to choose from now...

Sure, 25 years ago? He was stuck with a few cartridges. No mobile market, not an insanely big library of games to choose from and download online.

 

They have one of these in town, people still play it to this day. Machine is always occupied.

 

So that's apparently VS. Super Mario Bros. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros.#Vs._Super_Mario_Bros. Still seems to be that the NES game came first, but since the cabinet is basically just the guts of an NES, it's whatever.

 

Again, difficult to play? Or difficult to beat? We can't just speak so broadly. Tetris is super easy to play. But, getting the all time world high score? Hard ish.

I don't think games, on the whole, have gotten easier. More accessible. Clearer goals. Yes. More player defined goals than ever, certainly. Movie games are not as hard as the average 90's platformer, though. So, that can't be expected to be that way, forever, in my opinion.

 

Wrong picture I guess. Anyway - again wrong. The NES version definitely came out AFTER the arcade game. When the NES was announced winter 1986 I could already get to level 6-2 of SMB in the arcade, which was CRAZY hard. I figured I'd buy the NES and forget about the arcade game and probably break even money wise by the time I beat it. The NES was $80 and came with the game. But yeah level 6-2 was completely wussified and easy on the NES, along with a few others. So I beat the game 2 days after I got the system (on Christmas).

Pretty sure the reason they bundled the NES with SMB was because it was already an insanely popular and trending game. No brainer. They sold tons of the system because of that move alone.

This is from my 6th grade memory. I remember it all quite vividly. It's not wrong.

 

SMB (and sequels) are frequently considered to be the textbook examples of demonstrating "show don't tell" level design.
Level Design Lesson: To the right, hold on tight
Super Mario Bros. 101
Breaking the Law of Miyamoto (sorry, zipped pdf)
Super Mario Bros 3 Level Design Lessons, Part 1
Super Mario Bros 3 Level Design Lessons, Part 2

 

Donkey Kong came first.

 

All three NES Super Mario games were released for PlayChoice-10 arcade machines.

 

Now I'll assume you don't/didn't live in japan or north america where it seems like the release of SMB was indeed fairly slow to arrive to home consoles. In the US, both the NES and SMB came out in 85. Hell, I don't know why I'm even arguing since I wasn't even born yet.

 

I'm in North America (Seattle). Yes I guess it was 1985 since I bought Metroid later in 1986. I was guessing about the year. Anyway, the arcade game was out well in advance of the NES system. Ask anyone who's older than 35 or so.

 

It's good in terms of level design. I won't disagree there. My issue is it's completely alien logic (which actually requires good level design in order for the game to make any sense at all). It is not a game in which asking why yields any intelligible answer.

to be read in a mild valley girl accent: Sooo... I was playing as this little guy, and I think, he ate, like, a mushroom, or something, and got big. But then there was this other mushroom thing, but it walked, but when I ran into him, and got smaller again. And then there was this flower thing, I guess, and I hit it, and I think I died and was back to the beginning. But this other time, I saw this flower that wasn't moving, and ran into it, and got bigger AND got a costume change, oh my god...

It is quintessential "videogame logic" in that it doesn't make sense to anyone that isn't trying to deconstruct the systems to figure out how to play it.

 

Ive created games that I thought were easy. My very first iOS game was based off something I played when I was a kid. it sure wasnt rocket science beating the game, but the number of ppl that didnt understand how to play... Ha, even the simplist game I could think of (hardkour) is too hard for some ppl.

 

Sure they're looking at the big picture. It's like spaghetti sauce, there's no one best/optimal/only approach. In the big picture there's some room for all of the above.