Games "still too hard to learn," says Electronic Arts chief creative officer http://www.gamewatcher.com/news/2015-06-02-games-still-too-hard-to-learn-says-electronic-arts-chief-creative-officer Is he right that games should be dumbed-down even more ? Or that it takes two hours learning how to play an EA game, i refuse to buy anything from EA so IDK how things have changed with them over the years. Do people with normal family lives find it difficult to get the time needed to learn how to play a new game, and would simpler games make you more or less likely to buy a game ? Isn't further dumbing down of games going to have the opposite effect, or am i the only one that enjoys taking the time to learn all the ins and outs of a game, to play a game and discover something new about it ?
I think it largely depends on what view you take on learning a game. IMO it takes a very long time to learn games, which is both the appeal and the biggest drawback. I CBA to learn how to play LoL/DOTA alongside CS:GO and other titles like Besiege. I only have so much time, so I have to choose which ones I'd like to go with. As such, I opted for CS:GO complemented by smaller indie titles (such as besiege for instance). Often you can pick up the mechanics of a game fairly quickly, but sometimes it's hard to enjoy the game until you've actually put enough time in to have started to unravel the nuances. Take Counter Strike as an example. It has a very simple set of basic mechanics, but a very high skill cap thanks to how those mechanics interact. I would say that CS:GO is absolutely rubbish and simply not fun for about the first 6 hours of play. You can't hit jack shi* (coming from an FPS casual here), there are a lot of maps to learn, the weapons are confusing and everybody you play against appears to have the aim of the gods. However, after that initial crap period, the game does become more and more fun. I'm rubbish, probably some mid-ranked silver level (haven't won my 10 ranked matches yet), but I'm starting to learn the maps a bit, my aim is steadier and I have a decent feel for the weapons. But it took ages to get there in comparison to many games. LoL is exactly the same in that regard, only replace the maps with champions. Lots of little mechanics, lots of variables, an awful lot to learn. In short, I think the solution is for developers to avoid taking a jack-of-all-trades approach. If you want longevity, a chance at eSport success or a more "hardcore" (defined by me as people willing to put in the time to learn the nuances) userbase, you need fairly simple mechanics with a lot of depth and scope. If you want a quick turnaround based off a large potential audience, go for simple mechanics without at much depth. Both methods can be profitable, but trying to appeal to both at the same time IMO will basically never work. It does depend on the genre a bit though. Racing games for instance can have a lot of depth, but you can simply disable those features to make it simpler (reduce the AI, automatic gears, brake assist, visible racing lines etc. that you often see in modern sims). Most other games don't tend to have this inherent flexibility though, so would be better off avoiding this approach.
He's doesn't really seem to be saying that games are too hard to learn, more that just they take too long to learn. He's talking about the time investment. That doesn't mean that games have to be dumbed down, just that we need to find quicker ways to get people up to speed.
'Easy to learn, hard to master' From a design point of view, to some extent you have to assume the person playing has never played a video game before. Just because the concepts and mechanics involved are second nature for you, doesn't meant they are for everyone. Portal was, imo, a good example. The basic mechanics were presented early on and you were slowly introduced to new mechanics as the game went on. Each time a new mechanic was introduced the player then got to practice it, once they grasped it the level progressed and they move on to the next new mechanic. This continues until all the mechanics have been demonstrated and the player than has to put what they've learned to use. Counterstrike is, imo, a bad example, you get dumped in the deep end with the expectation that you know all of the game's ins and outs. And unless you're some kind of masochist willing to endure many hours of having your lack of knowledge rubbed in your face, a lot of players [myself included] are going to go 'screw this' and stop playing. On the whole I agree with the guy from EA in that if a complete newbie can't get their head around the basics of how to play the game inside the first few hours, you've messed up. Once they've got those mechanics they may need many more hours to master them, but you need to get the player acquainted with the basics as quick as possible and that is where I think the EA guy is trying to say most new games fall down.
In all seriousness, I think this is a Prelude to EA going even harder on mobile and freemium features in all their games. Before it was mechanics, unlocks, progression, soon it will be obfuscation, upgrades and paywalls.
Can't say i have, i may have the time to learn the odd new game but i don't have the spare cash to invest in a good steering wheel that i would need to play a racing simulator. Yea i tend to agree online games can be harsh to learn but i think that's more to do with having to play with unforgiving veterans than the actual mechanics of a game. Some people already complain about a game when it hand holds them to much, I'm not sure what a quicker way to bring people up to speed would be other than dumbing down the whole game, maybe if more EA games came with tutorials for people that needed to learn the basic, and could be skipped for those that don't. That works great for the first play through but is really annoying if you have to go through it two or three times, or already know what to do. Maybe I can't get into the mindset of a complete newbie as i find it difficult to comprehend that anyone would take more than a few hours to learn the basics of most games, I mean most games fall into one of the predefined genres don't they ?
I wouldn't call it "dumbing-down," at least not all of the time. Valve has said that the first few levels of Portal 2 (and most of their games, but P2 is a good example) are actually just tutorials. You learn different mechanics and you have to prove you understand them before you can move onto the next level. It's built into the mechanics of the game and the level design. That's still tutorial/learning, but it feels much less like tutorial because you get to jump right in. I would say a lot of games take 2ish hours to learn. Fallout: New Vegas had mechanics I wasn't familiar with, even though I've played RPGs and FPS games before. Those took a while to learn well enough to feel like I could "just play" without having to think too hard about it. I haven't gotten into DOTA 2 because there isn't a great way to learn the game, and it takes hours of practice to not-suck, let alone be adequate enough to play with other people. I have a wife and two kids and a full time job. Lately I've been looking for shorter gaming experiences, 12 hours or less. It's hard because it's not a metric listed with most games. I tried games like FTL, Space Pirates and Zombies, and a few others, but never really got into them because I felt the feedback loop was too large. Game Dev Tycoon was the same way. By the time you thought you figured out how to develop for one console/system you were a generation or two behind. The feedback the game gives you (which is explicit) isn't even that relevant. The time you have to learn by failure is essentially zero. I've watched some people really destroy some of the Crysis games. They switch between suit modes, weapons, vehicles, etc. so fast, and it's amazing. At the same time, as a developer you want lots of people to be able to play and enjoy your games, so there's no reason not to make those advanced moves possible, but you need to make it equally fun for less hardcore players. Working up to that skill level needs to be as fun/rewarding as being that good at the game.
