Why most people don't finish video games

I don't know bro. To me that 100 pages were quite good introduction into the setting on 19th centurey Saint Petersburg - which was in itself intriguing for me (though it couldn't have the same impact on Dostoyevskis' contemporaries). Raskolnikov was also the character that I could easily identify with. It was good enough reason to go on.

Similarly it's difficult to say yourself: "it will tun better once tutorial/chapter 1/2/10 is over". NWN ain't become any better throughout its gameplay. Same with Kotor. I feel no obligation to read a book/ watch a movie / play a game that bores me to tears. If I am not getting it 2 hours into game, why should I persist on? As Vii said, I don't have any obligation to get bored - it's the author/director/developer that's supposed to entertain me. Can I really trust you that it will become better? As a matter of fact, why should I at all?

Not to mention that 2 hours are enough to finish watching a full movie, read 100 pages book, so it should be enough to pass initial judgement of the game (No, I am not arguing here for shorter games).

Games are, as the name implies, based on the player actually doing something meaningful to surmount a challenge. Give me something to do, and it better be something creative, satisfying, and giving sense of accomplishement. Games are interactive by their nature, and taking away control from the player or restricting him in hamfisted fashion is simply betrayal of the medium. Ok, it may develop slowly, but at least let me do the developing bit - don't lock me in endless repetition and inanity with some vague promise of fun some time later.

For that reason, I also don't buy saying - "but you need to learn the rules". Learning rules is fine by mine, provided there's some reason to, some incentive for doing it - other then "you paid the moneyz, now suffer". There are the games of yesteryears that throw loads of stuff at you, then throw you into deep sea. That's all fine provided that there's something to pull you into the game - sometimes, theme, art direction and music are enough. As a wee kid I finished Betrayal at Krondor with an English dictionary on my lap - so good were the "hooks" in the game. I was learning everything about it, the rules, the use of spells, the combat, even goddamn English, because I had very good reasons to - from start to finish. This was the right, masterful approach.

Obviously it wouldn't work if the game didn't have a consistent theme, good music or art direction (for that times - I played it in 1997 for the first time though). If you do not to spark at least a flimsy flame of interest in entertainment you clearly are failing at it.

My initial impression of Crime & Punishment was that it was just too slow for its own good. The reason why I stayed with the book was a sense of almost guilt over not having read it. While the way Dostoyevsky explains the city life around the time was interesting, there were also long drawn out dialogue sections that, at the time when you read them (during the first 100 or so pages), don't feel necessary. They were of course needed for the reader to properly understand the characters and their motivations, but that only becomes apparent a while later. (I have sadly not read Heart of darkness, so I have nothing to add there, it is about 60-70 books down on my "to read" list. Nor have I played any final fantasy game past 9).

Many games relies on the expectation of "things getting better" for people to push past the initial period of pain. Games like the above mentioned Victoria: An empire under the sun, and also Dwarf fortress simply throws so much as you from the get go (by design), that unless you have the initial expectation of greatness, chances are that you won't find the time & energy to push yourself over the initial learning bump. But these are games that have such a level of complexity that it is very hard to design them any other way. Victoria 2 streamlined a lot of things, and also added options for automatisation for a lot of things in the game, but the fan reaction to this was less than favourable. While most people could agree on the fact that the game was easier to get into and more fun during the first few hours, they also found the game to be a bit patronizing. Some compared it to windows double warnings when trying to open a downloaded file ("Files downloaded from the internet can be dangerous, do you want to open it?" "Are you sure that you want to open this file?"). While a lot of it might be good for a person new to the game, the added streamline also became a hindrance in some part.
And as Patrick Bateman said, it would probably be better for a new player to the genre to play a game like Europa Universalis 3 rather than HoI3 or Victoria.
My point is that if you want to play a game that is as complex as a detailed grand strategy game (or a CRPG with a very complex rule system, for that matter), then you need to be prepared for the game to not be all that fun, before you get into it and understand what is going on.

(For the record, I find Victoria 1 to be better for smaller nations, up to around the size of Sweden, while Victoria 2 make larger nations like the UK or France more manageable). Victoria 1 could obviously have done a lot of things better, it could have had a better tutorial and a better manual, but even if those things were fixed, it would still be a rather time consuming game to get into.

And yes, Paradox are aware of the problems with their games, and have been working on trying to make their games more accessible, without dumbing them down (which has proven to be quite hard). The hearts of iron series is the easiest ones to follow, as they are the most transparent of the lot, you can see what most modifiers do, where they come in and get a rough idea about their impact on battles. HoI 1 had the most complex research system of the lot, it was hard to get into, and sometimes a bit messy, something that they changed for HoI 2. This in turn resulted in a fan backlash, where a lot of people complained about the research system in HoI 2. In HoI 3 they are trying to find a comfortable middle ground between the two, and I think that they getting close to finding the sweet spot (though they are not quite there yet).

Indeed. However, doesn't that in itself brings down the arguments we were trying to bring down?

1. Good strategy games START to get fun after much time has been invested.

Go and Chess are the very definition of great strategy games, yet they are easy to learn and, thus, can be fun from the very first game as long as you aren't playing against someone far above or below your own level of skill.

2. People make the investment to learn chess not because it is fun but because it will be fun once you have mastered it.

Go and Chess are fun from the very first game if you know the rules and your opponent is about the same skill level you are.

3. This is somehow related to a new trend towards instant gratification.

Considering how old Go and Chess are…

4. Games whose rules you can learn in an hour are shallow.

I.E: Go and Chess are shallow. If I have to forward an actual argument against this one I'll go on a rampage.
My argument was just that a game does not have to suck you right in to be a good game. Both chess & go are, if you start to analyze their finer points, immensely complex games (Go in particular), and both are examples of excellent game design. They have simple rules, but in order to get really good at those games you need to spend some time with them. But they are also games that you can get a good feel for very quickly, a person can understand Go after having played it once.
WiF is also a great game, but in a different way. It takes time and effort to understand how the game works, and you are forced to spend quite a lot of time with the game in order to properly play it, or even see the strategic nuances that the game has to offer. They are just two different ways of creating strategy games, neither is better than the other in my opinion. WiF is a game for the people who love details, but with the plethora of details also comes a far more unforgiving learning curve. The game basically forces you to have high expectations of it before you start for you to actually get past the rough bits.

And board game design is something that I've spent some time studying during the last year. In the off topic forum thread about good 2 person board games I mention that I'm currently working on my own game. Abstract games do have a rather easy way out, it does not need to "really" represent something. So while the black & white stones in Go are supposed to represent armies, that is unimportant. In my game the core idea is based around commanders giving orders to their soldiers, so right there you remove one level of abstraction. Now you need rules that in some way simulate order giving, and suddenly you also have to get a good feel for what the different soldiers actually represent. You can't just have soldiers appearing out of thin air (like in Go), their movement need to make sense to the players, even if it is not an accurate simulation. And suddenly you are faced with the problem of trying to make the game as easy as possible to get into, within the base framework of the core game idea versus the issue of making the rules for the game to make some form of logical sense when compared to the real world. And then you need to make sure that the rules in turn also offer a good amount of tactical depth. My first draft was cluttered and cumbersome, and many rules had to be cut because they either did not work as expected, because players had a hard time grasping their meaning or because they interacted poorly with other rules. And this is for a relatively rules light game. Even now, when it has reached a state where the core rules are set, and I'm mainly working on scenario design, there are some concepts that I feel that brand new players do have a problem grasping, but if I were to remove them, the game would not make as much logical sense (thus it would be a lot harder to visualize what is actually going on). If I were to try and make my game into more of an accurate simulation, then the threshold of entry would become far greater. So in the end, and what I'm clumsily trying to get at here is that you always need to look at the game as a whole when designing it. Compromises will have to be made somewhere. Sometimes the compromise will be made at accessibility (and as an extension fun for a new player), and sometimes it will have to be made at the level of rule complexity. It all depends on what the goal of the game actually is.

And as I know that I enjoy playing complex (or rules heavy would probably be a better word to use, Go is as we both agree on not a simplistic game, it just has simple rules), I am willing to put myself through this period of pain, because I know that the payoff will be worth it, in most cases (this is often more apparent when it comes to board games, where you have all the rules from the get go, than in computer games, where most rules are, at least partially, obscured by the game itself).

And you are my hero. I have gotten to the point where I can clear Embodiment of Scarlet Devil with little effort yet I can't reach Yuyuko with more than a single life in Perfect Cherry Blossom, every single time. Words can't describe how much I hate Youmu, once I got to her without lossing a single life in the entire game, yet when I finally got to Yuyuko I still did with naught but a single one! :'(
I tend to obsess over things, in particular when I have important exams coming up (should I study differential equations or play challenging computer games? Hm, computer games seem more fun). That is usually the time when I sit down and beat these super challenging games…


*edit* I think I should clarify where I stand a little better:
-I am not opposed to games being accessible. I think that the people who make the games should try to make games as accessible as they can as long as they don't compromise anything important.
-A game should try to draw you in early on. But I also find that the most rewarding games (books & movies) are the ones that requires some effort from the players part. The reason why both Planescape and Crime & Punishment were so good was because they forced the player to think, draw conclusions and work through some of the tougher parts in his/her own. In the same vein Go is absolutely a game that requires a lot of effort from the players side in order to get good at it. The reason why I compared shmups to go and grand strategy to WiF has nothing to do with their skill level, but rather the initial threshold of entry and how early in the process of learning the games you can draw any serious conclusions about them. This person has obviously spent a lot of time & effort on getting to where he is, and even though the core gameplay is simple, it is still a game that requires a lot of dedication from its player in order to become that good.
-Certain games are, at their very core, harder to get into for a new player.
-Requiring effort from the player is not the same as making a game inaccessible to new players, though it can be a determining factor.
 
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Fnord said:
WiF is also a great game, but in a different way. It takes time and effort to understand how the game works, and you are forced to spend quite a lot of time with the game in order to properly play it, or even see the strategic nuances that the game has to offer. They are just two different ways of creating strategy games, neither is better than the other in my opinion. WiF is a game for the people who love details, but with the plethora of details also comes a far more unforgiving learning curve. The game basically forces you to have high expectations of it before you start for you to actually get past the rough bits.

I can't argue from my own experience about those kind of games, to be honest. They are not my thing, nor the thing of those around me. However, from what I have collected from forums and articles and the like the people who tends to like those games seems to enjoy both the complexity and the depth of the simulation in themselves, so the game has a hook for them even before they started playing it: The rules, along with their complexity and, uhm, stuffies.

I haven't said those games are bad. Actually, I have said a completely different thing, that those games are actually very enjoyable for their intended audience and that such is the reason why they go to all the trouble to learn the game. Those hooks aren't related only to gameplay: Rules, setting, scenario, depth of the simulation, art style, soundtrack, etc, can all be considered hooks. In other words you are using your initial reserve of interest and motivation to give the product a fair chance, and then becoming hooked by something on it, or not.

Again, however, one of the initial arguments I am arguing against is the argument that a player that doesn't invest her time in learning a game that isn't hooking her is somehow at fault, and that she has the duty of investing whatever time either the developer or other players believe she has to before deciding the game isn't for her.

An example: I don't like rules heavy games, as it should be obvious by now. If you and me play chess it is actually nothing more than a friendly intellectual duel between you and me, and just like any other friendly duel certain rules, the rules of chess instead of, say, the rules of friendly fencing duels, are agreed upon to make it fair and interesting and entertaining. In my experience, which may or may not be absolute but it's, like, the only experience I have, games tend to lose more and more of that the more complex the rules become, and soon they stop being a duel of wits and skill to be, instead, about who knows the rules better.

Which probably also explains why I love debate but hate lawyers. :p

Anyway, I am not criticizing games heavy in rules, they are just not my thing, but you can understand why someone like me, who seeks this instead of that in a game, doesn't really like them. So let's say a friend of mine buys this complex grand strategy game that simulates conditions and elements of the battle of the Somme in the kind of painstaking detail grognards love.

I obviously only need to take a look at the manual's size to say "Not really interested, sorry."

In which way did I not give it a fair chance? I gave it one, and it ended as soon as I noticed we were obviously not meant for each other in the same way I don't like fat guys and thus the fair chance I give a fat guy who hits on me ends the moment I notice he's fat. Gee, maybe he's a great guy. An awesome guy, even! And very smart, too, but he's not my kind of guy. I don't have to waste several months dating him to notice there's a fundamental flaw in the system.

The other side's argument is that I should have wasted my time, which is limited and thus a quite precious commodity, into going through the entirety of the manual and additional materials until becoming familiar with them, and then I should have to play many games until my understanding of the game is enough to say "Gee, you know what? I don't like this."

And I am answering "Gee, people who does that does so because they enjoy doing that."

fnord said:
-I am not opposed to games being accessible. I think that the people who make the games should try to make games as accessible as they can as long as they don't compromise anything important.

Indeed. I'm with you in that one: Given two games of equal depth, the more complex one is obviously of a worse design as long as complexity for complexity's sake wasn't one of the ruling philosophies. And given two games with complexity for complexity's sake as a ruling philosophy and equal depth, the less complex one is obviously of a worse design.

fnord said:
-A game should try to draw you in early on. But I also find that the most rewarding games (books & movies) are the ones that requires some effort from the players part. The reason why both Planescape and Crime & Punishment were so good was because they forced the player to think, draw conclusions and work through some of the tougher parts in his/her own.

I'm with you in that one, too. A game should hook you, yes, but it shouldn't give it all to you in a silver platter. The other way around, actually: It should hook you so you fight to master it.

Fnord said:
In the same vein Go is absolutely a game that requires a lot of effort from the players side in order to get good at it. The reason why I compared shmups to go and grand strategy to WiF has nothing to do with their skill level, but rather the initial threshold of entry and how early in the process of learning the games you can draw any serious conclusions about them.

Alright, I'll give you that. However, what is a serious conclusion is based on subjective considerations of the player. In the example I did use above considering such a game was not something I was going to enjoy was a serious conclusion given the evidence at hand. Time invested has nothing to do with it: The fact that I don't enjoy that kind of game isn't going to change if I suffer through it for a month instead of just throwing a glance to the huge manual full of rules and little numbers.

Fnord said:
This person has obviously spent a lot of time & effort on getting to where he is, and even though the core gameplay is simple, it is still a game that requires a lot of dedication from its player in order to become that good.

O_O Holy… That's bloody awesome! And it even fits really well with Ikaruga's theme and concept, I'm truly impressed.

Yet I somehow doubt the player in the video got to that level out of an intense hate, or dislike, for Ikaruga. I would bet a hug that fun, love, and passion were involved, instead, and thus he enjoyed getting there.

fnord said:
-Certain games are, at their very core, harder to get into for a new player.

True.

fnord said:
-Requiring effort from the player is not the same as making a game inaccessible to new players, though it can be a determining factor.

Yes. However, that doesn't means those who keep at it are somehow torturing themselves for the promise of a future paradise nor that those who don't care enough are retards.



Anyway, it's getting hard on me to try and keep debating with three different people having three different points at the same time, and I'm getting a terrible headache just trying to remember who said what and thus what retort should be use against whose argument without sounding like a bitch, so I'll be leaving the debate now. Consider ChibiMrowak to be the gamemaster now, I'll just be dropping in every now and then to say this and that.
 
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@Vii Zafira

A learning process doesn't need to be tedious for the end result to be fun, and of course there can be a lot of fun to be had in games that are accessible and require little learning. I hate protestant work ethics as much as you, the idea that things must be terrible before they can be good invokes my inner anarchist.

However in my own experience there are many types of leisure activities that requires some initial tedium before enjoyment can be had, and for me those often yield bigger rewards.
When I start playing a new game and encounter a smooth easy transition into the game, I instinctively worry that the game may become boring quick. However If the learning process is longer my expectations go up. I think I react like that psychologically because my experience in the past is that a longer learning process will yield a better end result. Another reason may very well be that I love learning in general, and it rarely is tedious in the first place.

Or to make a TLDR version of my incoherent rambling, simple game have often failed to reward me, while complex games more often than not reward me.


BTW what is a SHMUPS? I feel I'm missing out on something here :)
 
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It seems that the only remaining point of contention can be resolved by remembering (repeating) that the effort (needed to learn complex rules of the game) and entertainment (derived from playing the game while still learning the rules) are not mutually exclusive (for the players who enjoy games with complex rules), and that developer, among other tasks, has duty to make the process of learning intuitive and enterntaining without dumbing down the game. In that sense, the difference between well designed games with complex and simple rules is not of qualitative (lack of fun in the beginning), but of quantitative nature (the way that skill improves and enjoyment improves with it).
 
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BTW what is a SHMUPS? I feel I'm missing out on something here :)

Actually, it is a new word that I have learned yesterday. I myself was thinking: "What the hell is a SHMUP"?

But then I pronounced the word and suddenly realised what it meant through its phonetic resemblance to a known term: Shoot 'em Up
 
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Asdraguuhl said:
How deviously manipulative, conditioning the context in that she was the Game Mistress thus running the show.

(…have to admit it is a clever tactic)

Ehm… I'm sorry if you took it personally, but that's naught but an Umineko No Naku Koro Ni reference, just like most of the other weird thingies in my way of debating are. It is basically a visual novel about witches, demons, and a pretty cute and lovable guy playing a game of logic and argumentation while reality breaks all around them as a result.

Clicky click me!

And click me too!

Considering that visual novel was the entire reason I discovered how much fun debating could be back when I first read it and thus started studying about it, that I am reading through it again right now, and that I love it as much as many of you love Planescape Torment I was just having some fun with Mrowak and the voices in my head with the references and the inside jokes.

Don't be so serious about everything. You may be surprised because I originally came from the Codex but I never make mean intentioned comments like that. I'm sorry if I gave you the impression I was making fun of you or something.

Bostur said:
BTW what is a SHMUPS? I feel I'm missing out on something here :)

A SHMUP is a shoot 'em up, a subgenre of shooter games that the japanese love to make as difficult as humanely possible. They usually require a lot of training, effort, and work to become good at, both in general, with the generalities of the genre itself, and in particular, with the peculiarities of each new game you play.

Some examples:

Death Smiles, full run, 999 mode.

Subterranean Animism, stage 5, Lunatic mode.

Crimzon Clover, Stage 3 boss, Unlimited.

On the other point, however, it seems we are at an impasse as either our experiences are diametrically opposed or we are finding a language based inconvenient, which is quite possible.

Or in the very interpretation as I believe you guys are having fun because you enjoy learning a new game. I.E: That you aren't suffering or being bored while doing so, but intrigued and interested.

Patrick Bateman said:
It seems that the only remaining point of contention can be resolved by remembering (repeating) that the effort (needed to learn complex rules of the game) and entertainment (derived from playing the game while still learning the rules) are not mutually exclusive (for the players who enjoy games with complex rules)

You are much better at explaining that point than I am. :glomp:
 
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RK47 learns chess at 13:

rk "Hey cousin, why did you buy Chessmaster 5000?"

"Meh, I wanted to try my hand at chess."

rk"Can I try it?"

"Sure. I'm off for class. Cya"

5 hours later…

" I'm back- So how's chessmaster, rk?"

rk " Hi Cousin, This is cool, I beat this french guy on yahoo chess by mirroring his move on chessmaster and following this Kasparov AI moves."

"wtf?"

emo-emot-smug.gif
And that's how I learned how to play chess.
 
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Ehm… I'm sorry if you took it personally
Nothing personal. I was neutral anyway since I hardly partook in the debate. It was just an interesting observation.

You may be surprised because I originally came from the Codex but I never make mean intentioned comments like that.

I happen to recognise you from one of my regular lurking sessions at the Codex. And you are indeed right…..the little cute dark kitten has never ever filled her sweet words with acid and coated them with a layer of venom :).

I'm sorry if I gave you the impression I was making fun of you or something.
Subtle…yet conditioning nevertheless :).
 
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You are much better at explaining that point than I am. :glomp:

Thank you :)

RK47 said:
RK47 learns chess at 13:

rk "Hey cousin, why did you buy Chessmaster 5000?"

"Meh, I wanted to try my hand at chess."

rk"Can I try it?"

"Sure. I'm off for class. Cya"

5 hours later…

" I'm back- So how's chessmaster, rk?"

rk " Hi Cousin, This is cool, I beat this french guy on yahoo chess by mirroring his move on chessmaster and following this Kasparov AI moves."

"wtf?"

And that's how I learned how to play chess.

A "smug" smiley from the Codex would be appropriate to cap this story.
 
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yeah ur right. i'll fix it. one moment...
 
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I have to admit I didn't read anything. But on the issue of a game being fun before being mastered,I would take Age of Empires as an example.

You can learn the game quickly to know the basics of it. This can already tell you if you'd like the game. However, getting good at the game is very hard.

Another example would be KOTOR, where you need to get through 3 hours of a tutorial-like scenario before moving on to the real gameplay.

Like every medium, some things take longer to be enjoyable than others, but they're usually not the reason for me to finish or not finish the game.

It's usually that the games just stop being interesting after a while for me. I also usually play games without storylines, like Mount and Blade, Age of Empires and so on...

I did manage to finish Gothic once, Gothic II once, Fallout three times, FO II twice, but I think that's probably it. I never finished GIII even though I enjoyed it for about 150 hours in total and played through parts of it 3 times. I've never finished a game of Rome Total War, or Shogun or Medieval for that matter either. I did play these for hundreds of hours. Especially Rome :)

I'm going to try Risen after my exams maybe, if the new LOTR mod for MnB doesn't get patched by then :)

Basically, it's not always because the game is bad that I wouldn't finish it, but because my goal isn't to finish a game, but to enjoy it on my own time.
 
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Thanks Asdraguuhl and Vii Zafira for explaining that a SHMUP is simply a shoot'em'up. Kids these days, make acronyms out of everything it seems. ;-)


Bateman's conclusion is a good one. Accessibility is a good thing as long as it doesn't compromise gameplay. Perfection is not when nothing more can be added, but when nothing more can be taken away.

I think people are often opposed to accessibility and streamlining because recently a lot of heavy-handed compromises have been put into games. I wouldn't want to play a game of chess where knights have been patched out because they are too hard to learn.
 
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Bateman's conclusion is a good one. Accessibility is a good thing as long as it doesn't compromise gameplay. Perfection is not when nothing more can be added, but when nothing more can be taken away.

I think no one has ever argued here against complexity. Complexity in games is always a good thing because it stands directly against "instant gratification", which is shallow, boring (in the long run) and does not "hook on" the player in any way (hence the argument that developers these days can't create interesting gameplay from the very start to finish). Note here that in my dictionary complexity means also the marraige of game elements that creates successful gameplay.

The challenge for the dev is twofold here. First of all the complexity must be meaningful. It's not enough to throw a bunch of options when all you have to do is use 1/6 of them to win, totally ignoring the rest. A good example of this error is The Witcher 2 (not very complex game to begin with) which allows you to throw bombs, make potions, set traps, use daggers etc. but what you really need to do to win is roll around like mad and spam one spell (Quen). Trivia: Actually, back on the 'Dex we managed to finish 3/4 of the game (up to the phantom battle - where rolling is blocked) without investing a single character point in skill tree on Hard difficulty. Therefore: Complexity for complexity sake is pointless if it is not reflected in meaningful way in the gameplay.

The second challenge is to present the complexity in interesting fashion highlighting the "meaningfulness" of the system. Once again, learning the system should be fun in itself. It shouldn't be boring and it oughtn't to offer some vague promise of fun later on which might or might not be fulfilled. A way to achieve this is encouraging the player to experiment with various options in the course of the gameplay if only to show off how meaningful they are. This ought to be paired with difficult challenges in which the player would be pushed to use whatever abilities, skills and knowledge (all of which come from complexity) he has at his disposal.

If we assume that: complexity is a desirable quality in any game and a good game is one that makes you engrossed the soonest Paraphrasing, Vii's words from earlier ring the truth: Of two equally complex games the one that captures one's interest earlier is naturally the better designed one.

I think people are often opposed to accessibility and streamlining because recently a lot of heavy-handed compromises have been put into games. I wouldn't want to play a game of chess where knights have been patched out because they are too hard to learn.

What we have here nowadays is that complexity is streamlined for the sake of low barrier of entry. In effect there's little of substance to "hook up" (beside your generic explosions, pulp plot, some run-of-the-mill action sequences) and there's nothing to "hook on". Obviously this is wrong - at least from a player's viewpoint - the dev will only care for selling a copy.

What there should be is God forbid a game of thousands bloated stats that might or might not prove useful 5-8-12 hours into it. For a gamer it's unbelieveable waste of time to play 8 hours and discover that everything is still boring, repetetive and useless. Instead games should have those thousands options be dosed in such a way as to make the player curious and actively test them out throughout the gamplay.

Pladio's words: "my goal isn't to finish a game, but to enjoy it on my own time" speak the truth about gaming and the players in general. I will disagree with him saying that losing interest has little to do with game being bad. It indicates a design flaw - if the gameplay can't hold your interest from the start or from some point into it, either way it's a sure mark something is wrong with the game or at least with the hype that directed you to it.

Also what Patrick Bateman said.

thumbs_up.png
 
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"(very annoyed that you had to start MQ in order to enchant your bow) "

I don't get this part. Where are you forced to do this?

The only available Arcane table is in Jarl's house in the first stupid city you find, in order to do any enchantment you have to speak to the female Dark Elf and then you are forced to start MQ .
 
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@mrowakus: That was for me personally. I am sure it's not the same for everyone. But usually, I stop playing because I've played for a long time, while recreating new characters (in RPGs) or something else catches my interest, or something called real life with studies comes along. I don't think I have bought many bad games.

I haven't played/bought many games lately though. I'm still playing Mount and Blade, which I bought when it was still in beta :) The modding community is nothing short of amazing.
 
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I can't argue from my own experience about those kind of games, to be honest. They are not my thing, nor the thing of those around me. However, from what I have collected from forums and articles and the like the people who tends to like those games seems to enjoy both the complexity and the depth of the simulation in themselves, so the game has a hook for them even before they started playing it: The rules, along with their complexity and, uhm, stuffies.
Indeed, but they are games that forces the player to hook themselves before the game can hook the player. It is the expectation from the players side that the game might become good once you get past the initial learning curve that drives players to spend hours (days?) of their lives trying to get a firm grasp of the rules.


Again, however, one of the initial arguments I am arguing against is the argument that a player that doesn't invest her time in learning a game that isn't hooking her is somehow at fault, and that she has the duty of investing whatever time either the developer or other players believe she has to before deciding the game isn't for her.
But have you ever tried to play one of those games? I'm of the opinion that you should always try out new things, and yes you do often find that things that did not look all that fun/interesting are not all that fun/interesting, but it is also not all that uncommon that you do enjoy them. I'm not saying that you should try out every single game of that type, just one or two. If nothing else you will be an experience richer.


An example: I don't like rules heavy games, as it should be obvious by now. If you and me play chess it is actually nothing more than a friendly intellectual duel between you and me, and just like any other friendly duel certain rules, the rules of chess instead of, say, the rules of friendly fencing duels, are agreed upon to make it fair and interesting and entertaining. In my experience, which may or may not be absolute but it's, like, the only experience I have, games tend to lose more and more of that the more complex the rules become, and soon they stop being a duel of wits and skill to be, instead, about who knows the rules better.
That is a valid concern about games like that, and yes sadly many complex games (be it computer or board games) do become a question about "who knows the rules better". Board games have two simple solutions: Allow do-overs when someone makes a clear rule-based mistake, or just allow the new player to team up with a more experienced one for his/her first few games (that is how my group usually introduce new players to more complex games). Computer games are more tricky in that regard, if you don't know the long term effects of health reforms in Victoria (one of the, if not the most important reforms, according to me), then you might not get them.




Indeed. I'm with you in that one: Given two games of equal depth, the more complex one is obviously of a worse design as long as complexity for complexity's sake wasn't one of the ruling philosophies. And given two games with complexity for complexity's sake as a ruling philosophy and equal depth, the less complex one is obviously of a worse design.
I don't consider complexity for complexity's sake to be a good thing. It is in fact one of the hallmarks of poor game design. Every bit of added complexity needs to also add something to the gameplay, or it is just wasted. Complexity that introduces new and interesting options is a good thing, in a game that tries to offer a more complete picture of what is going on, while complexity that just slows down the game is not. A running joke among Advance squad leader (a hex based tactical board game) is: "How many ways can you cross a road?" "About 200". That joke makes no sense to anyone who is unfamiliar with the game, but it illustrates the amount of options that the game gives the player. On the other hand, I played another game that tried to give a more accurate damage model (I've forgot its name, I've not played it in about 5 years), where you first rolled for to hit, then to wound, then the effect of the wound on the soldier then if the solider (or any present medic) could do something to help the soldier get back on his feet. Each roll was meant to represent a different thing, and there was a bit of "fluff text" for each one, but all they did was slow down gameplay. You could easily have reduced it to two, or even one die roll without the game losing any of its tactical depth.


O_O Holy… That's bloody awesome! And it even fits really well with Ikaruga's theme and concept, I'm truly impressed.

Yet I somehow doubt the player in the video got to that level out of an intense hate, or dislike, for Ikaruga. I would bet a hug that fun, love, and passion were involved, instead, and thus he enjoyed getting there.
Indeed, I just posted the link to show that I understand that there is a very high skill ceiling to such games, and that they don't have to be any less rewarding than the 300+page manual games.

It seems that the only remaining point of contention can be resolved by remembering (repeating) that the effort (needed to learn complex rules of the game) and entertainment (derived from playing the game while still learning the rules) are not mutually exclusive (for the players who enjoy games with complex rules), and that developer, among other tasks, has duty to make the process of learning intuitive and enterntaining without dumbing down the game. In that sense, the difference between well designed games with complex and simple rules is not of qualitative (lack of fun in the beginning), but of quantitative nature (the way that skill improves and enjoyment improves with it).

They are indeed not mutually exclusive, but to most, the process of learning the basics of a new complex game is usually less fun than to just dive into something far more easily accessible, even if the game comes will a well crafted tutorial and manual. I had fun from the get-go when I played Mass effect, but its gameplay did not leave me with a lasting impression (the setting did, but that is another discussion entirely). Realms of Arkania was not nearly as fun from the get-go, but its gameplay left a lasting impression on me. The "pain period" for any complex game is not just a matter of "is it fun or not?", but also a matter of "is it less fun that the other game?". And here is where the promise of future fun comes in. It is what drives you to play a game that is less fun right now than the other game. It is of course a gap that can be partially bridged, but I don't think it will be entirely bridged. And as we humans are lazy buggers, it is easy to just pick the game that will be "very fun" now, instead of the game that will be "incredibly fun" in 2h, but which just will be "entertaining" now. (And yes, I do of course also do that quite often. Instead of playing the probably very deep & rewarding game "Pride of nations", which I have installed right now, I end up debating on an online forum. I never disliked the game during the tutorial section, but this is more fun "right now").

Thanks Asdraguuhl and Vii Zafira for explaining that a SHMUP is simply a shoot'em'up. Kids these days, make acronyms out of everything it seems. ;-)
These days we are so lazy that we need to come up with shorthands for shorthands (Shot 'em up is after all short for Shot them up). I wonder what that says about the society we live in :p

The challenge for the dev is twofold here. First of all the complexity must be meaningful. It's not enough to throw a bunch of options when all you have to do is use 1/6 of them to win, totally ignoring the rest. Therefore: Complexity for complexity sake is pointless if it is not reflected in meaningful way in the gameplay.
I strongly agree with you here. Just one thing, if the other 5/6 options are all viable, but offers different ways to tackle the problem, I don't think it is a bad thing to include them, even if you don't need to use them, as long as the 1/6 of the options that you are given offers enough options themselves. I don't have a computer that can handle The Witcher 2, so I can't comment on that though.
 
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Hm, it feels a bit redundant/late to address some of the earlier points, so just in short (and sorry for redundance):

So if, for example, I'm the kind of girl who considers T-Ara one of the best bands ever and you come and tell me to give a chance to Immortal or Manowar, it isn't my fault if I don't like it. Yet most of the really emotionally invested metalheads out there would say, like, "You are a commercial and shallow whore and wouldn't know true and deep music with a message if it were to punch you in that uppity nose of you with fists made of TRUE AND PURE METAL! And you are the reason we can't have nice things MADE OF MANLY LEATHER AND SHARP STEEL!" or something equally stupid instead of, like, "Cool, no hard feelings."
Haha, that´s right. Btw, I believe the exact response you´d get from Manowar fans would be "poser!".
Manowar vs. T-Ara would be quite extreme example of potentially "misaligned" audience though, I was thinking more along the lines of, say, T-Ara vs. this cover by Pizzicato Five, where, to my ears and without further scrutiny, it´s more difficult to predict whether a fan of one will be a fan of the other.


This represents about 1/4 of the game, if I remember correctly. This can only be if their expectations of the game somewhat changed and if those expectations had such a strong influence on them, like for the guy in the topic you've linked. To me, this is quite foreign and cannot be explained in a rational way.
Sometimes people operate in mysterious ways :).

For the only one that explained his change of heart, it is obvious that either his initial lack of enjoyment was the result of a significant influence of wrong expectations (as he stated himself), or the guy has deluded himself thanks to peer pressure into thinking that he finally liked the game. In any case, he seems like an individual whose opinion can easily be influenced.
But the thing is for the purpose of my point I didn´t need any explanation at all.

In that one thread there were people posting:
"I also found the game kinda sucks at the beginning, but after 3-4 hours of play I loved that game."
"Yes the beginning sucks. You have to use your imagination and try and empathise with the characters, once you do that and get further into the game it picks up."
"I had a hard time getting into the game a couple of years ago too but when I did, I loved it."

My point was that for certain type of audience the introductory section worked, for certain type in didn´t even though the game at some point later started to, therefore I disagreed with the assessment that if one dislikes mortuary, one can safely shelve the game.

But there is a threshold where the continuum is broken: at the point where alternative forms of spending time become more attractive and that's where a game is abandoned in pursuit of other forms of entertainment.
Indeed.
Could you please mark on my continuum map where exactly that threshold is?



Good point, but it also may refer to "watered-down audience" - if you try to please everyone, sooner or later you will end up with repetetive, boring, uninspired gameplay that is easy to hype into the heavens, but unbearable to endure.

Or it may be simply the case of game being "bad".
Yes, it may also be these reasons.

I highlighted in some previous posts that one of the faults of contemporary developers is complete inability to make all those ingredients work together. Now when I say that art direction can "hook" me into the gameplay I fully expect that it will one of the parts reinforcing it, not the only thing it works on. You can have the prettiest pictures on earth but when all you do is popping some moles again and again, there's no chance in hell you are going to finish this abomination.
Similarly as you, I have this kinda holistic view on gameplay and agree that the "marriage" more often than not doesn´t occur or is shaky (it´s particularly hilarious when elements are downward contradictory, like level scaling vs. exploration), but in that one part you were talking about "slow beginnings" and in such case I think that prettiest pictures on Earth may be enough to tide someone over.



The challenge for the dev is twofold here. First of all the complexity must be meaningful. It's not enough to throw a bunch of options when all you have to do is use 1/6 of them to win, totally ignoring the rest. A good example of this error is The Witcher 2 (not very complex game to begin with) which allows you to throw bombs, make potions, set traps, use daggers etc. but what you really need to do to win is roll around like mad and spam one spell (Quen). Trivia: Actually, back on the 'Dex we managed to finish 3/4 of the game (up to the phantom battle - where rolling is blocked) without investing a single character point in skill tree on Hard difficulty. Therefore: Complexity for complexity sake is pointless if it is not reflected in meaningful way in the gameplay.
The blue font doesn´t stop me to point out this is a discussion about why people don´t finish games, not why games suck :).
Meaningful?
The Witcher 2 is a game with difficulty settings. What constitutes "meaningful" for people who play it on easy?
Or how about setting traps being meaningful because it´s fun to use them?
Or how about throwing bombs not being pointless, simply because it´s an alternative to rolling + Quen.

People play (and finish) computer games for various reasons.
Are you entirely sure that if taking full advantage of its character development system would be "mandatory" to complete it, more people would finish The Witcher 2?


What we have here nowadays is that complexity is streamlined for the sake of low barrier of entry. In effect there's little of substance to "hook up" (beside your generic explosions, pulp plot, some run-of-the-mill action sequences) and there's nothing to "hook on". Obviously this is wrong - at least from a player's viewpoint - the dev will only care for selling a copy.
thumbs_up.png

Perhaps the main reason why people don´t finish video games is simply because developers don´t care whether people finish their games or not and people who don´t finish their games don´t give developers considerable amount of feedback (not buy their next title) so that they´d started to care more :).
 
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Fnord said:
But have you ever tried to play one of those games?

To be honest my interest in war, politics, simulations, complex rules, and the like is in the realm of negative numbers, which would make it an active dislike. The only one I honestly tried was, uhm, Solium Infernum or something, by which I mean it was the first, and only, one that I did not leave the very moment it started noticing numbers and spreadsheets and weird stuff coming out of the woodwork and getting in the way of my master plan of conquest and genocide.

In that one case the hook was the setting, given as you will sooner or later discover I am a walking encyclopedia of demonic lore, so I gave it a fair chance that lasted only for as long as it took me to notice they have somehow managed to get all of the lore wrong and that they have no deeper knowledge on demonic lore than any random goth loser you can find in an underground nightclub for people who isn't permited to go into the cool ones, which was the moment the only hook pulling me forward was anihilated and I dropped it.

Fnord said:
That is a valid concern about games like that, and yes sadly many complex games (be it computer or board games) do become a question about "who knows the rules better". Board games have two simple solutions: Allow do-overs when someone makes a clear rule-based mistake, or just allow the new player to team up with a more experienced one for his/her first few games (that is how my group usually introduce new players to more complex games). Computer games are more tricky in that regard, if you don't know the long term effects of health reforms in Victoria (one of the, if not the most important reforms, according to me), then you might not get them.

I'll accept that as an option that works for people who is in some measure interested in the genre. For a person like me, however, to whom the very concept of simulationist and complex rules represents a corruption of the purity of the contest between two players, or between a player and a game master, it is perfectly understandable to actively dislike them.

I.E: For me games are tests of pure skill, pure reasoning, or pure wit, not test of technical knowledge. I can enjoy Progear but I can't enjoy a realistic flight simulator, I can enjoy chess but can't enjoy, say, those Gary Grigsby games, and I can enjoy logic puzzles but can't enjoy a game in which, for example, all the puzzles are based on an asumed knowledge of chemistry.

In every case the former ones are pure tests, or contests, with nothing but a few rules keeping it inside a certain set of parameters, while the later ones are tests of highly technical knowledge. The former examples test, primarily, who you are: Your reasoning, your reflexes, your perception, etc. The later examples test, primarily your mastery over a certain type of technical discipline or knowledge.

So I can't really enjoy the later ones. I don't say the are bad games, though. They are simply not my thing, and it is a pattern that can be seen in all the games I enjoy: Notice how most of the role playing games I enjoy, in my profile, are action role playing games in which rules only work to keep you inside a certain set of parameters (you can only do so much damage, you only have so much mana, you can only carry so much stuffies) while you explore, fight, and solve puzzles mostly by yourself, using those tools the game gives you in ways that depend on your own skill and wit instead of games in which you play the mechanics to do all those things, and in which the mechanics themselves get in the way of your own skill.

Fnord said:
Indeed, I just posted the link to show that I understand that there is a very high skill ceiling to such games, and that they don't have to be any less rewarding than the 300+page manual games.

But I never said games with 300+ page manuals were less rewarding. The other way around, as I said games with 300+ page manuals are very rewarding for those who enjoy them. And, thus, I said learning to play them is something they enjoy instead of something they suffer through with clenched teeth.

My enemy aren't complex games but the application of the protestant work ethic to games and the idea that people is not finding any enjoyment in those games until they have mastered them.

Fnord said:
The "pain period" for any complex game is not just a matter of "is it fun or not?", but also a matter of "is it less fun that the other game?".

I am sad to say it in such a way but you are wrong in that assesment. The entire point of this debate is whether or not a pain period of anti-fun exists between first starting the game and the moment it becomes fun.

Let me quote myself.

Vii said:
I did say, myself, that the more you play, and thus the more you understand the flow of the game and the way those mechanics you first learned can be twisted into many maneuvers and tricks, the more you will enjoy the game and the more fun you will have.

It is pretty obvious, I believe, that facing higher level opponents in games involving higher level maneuvers guided by higher level reasoning and hidden behind higher level tricks is going to be more fun, more enjoyable, and more entertaining. No one's disputing that.

That isn't the protestant side's argument, though. their argument is, instead, that deep games begin their relationship with the player by being boring, unenjoyable, and simply not fun, and that it isn't until the player is well into mastering both game and metagame that it will start being a pleasure to play.

That's what they have said. I quote, now,

"Because a lot of the best games, movies, books and so on even these days require some investment before they become enjoyable. If you pirate a game and don't like the first 2 hours you might just drop it."

I.E: If they aren't enjoyable until then, and you aren't going to like them at all until you have invested a given amount of time and effort on them.

And just to make sure no one will accuse me of misunderstanding or taking out of context when the going gets rough:

1. If the stuffie in question began its relationship with the consumer by being enjoyable and then it went on to become more and more enjoyable there would not be a need to invest time and effort before they become enjoyable.

2. If the thingie in question began its relationship with the consumer by being kind of fun and then went on and on to become more fun as it is played and learned those evil pirates would keep playing the game after those initial two hours as they would be having fun to begin with.

So we can easily declare that the other side's point is that the games they are talking about are not enjoyable, at all, until the player has invested enough time and effort on them. We can also declare that this includes any enjoyment to be had from learning the game, as if the pirates were having fun learning the game they wouldn't be leaving to begin with. And this also includes all enjoyment to be had from the social context in which the game is played, as those magical pirates would not stop playing if they were having fun with the people they are playing with as MMOs have shown once and again.

Therefore, their point is that you must suffer deep games before you are rewarded with fun, which is one of the most incredible manifestations of protestant work ethic I have ever seen. However, keep in mind I'm not trying to be mean or insult anyone by saying that. I'm just kind of surprised there are people trying to apply that ethic to having fun, that's all.

Anyway, let's keep going. The charming, fashionable, totally in, and truly adorable side's argument, meanwhile, is that people enjoys those games in some way and thus keeps playing to become better at them. Then, as they keep playing and becoming better at them, they have more and more fun that keeps them going and inspires them to ever greater efforts to become even better and thus have even more fun.

That doesn't mean the game is super duper fun when they first begin playing. Instead, that means the game is kind of fun when they begin playing and learning the game, and thus they say "imagine all the fun I will be having when I am really good at this".

Which takes us to another declaration, now mine.

You can't become really good at something you hate or dislike without an external agent that motivates you instead of enjoyment and fun.

And that's under the descriptor of work, not play.

So the point isn't whether or not a game becomes more enjoyable the more you play and the better you become, but whether you are receiving any enjoyment from playing, from learning, or from being with your friends before mastering them. If you are, then the other side's argument is false.

Other than that we are almost of one mind outside of our taste in games and a couple minor details.

DeepO said:
Manowar vs. T-Ara would be quite extreme example of potentially "misaligned" audience

But just think about it… In this corner a hardcore grognard girl with a fetish for self flagellation who is sure those damn posers are the very reason everything has gone to the dogs, corrupting everything they touch with their shallowness and mindless gratification. In that corner a fickle girl with a pretty hedonistic worldview who believes you can't spell play without fun and that convictions are a terribly boring thing to be had, and that people that goes all grumpy about hobbies does so because feeling different and marginalized is fun and enjoyable to them in some twisted manner.

T-Ara vs Manowar was a perfect example! THE example, even! We should resolve this with a dance battle and be done with it! :biggrin:
 
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The blue font doesn´t stop me to point out this is a discussion about why people don´t finish games, not why games suck :).

You can try finding the reason within the players, or within games. But every player is an individual and the nature of the man is not easily changed, so it is easier and more productive finding the reason within the game (and once we eliminate the players who are by default not interested in the particular type of game the reason always boils down to "it sucks", but we need to point out many reasons that makes it "suck" and that's what we have been doing.

Meaningful?
The Witcher 2 is a game with difficulty settings. What constitutes "meaningful" for people who play it on easy?
Or how about setting traps being meaningful because it´s fun to use them?
Or how about throwing bombs not being pointless, simply because it´s an alternative to rolling + Quen.

People play (and finish) computer games for various reasons.
Are you entirely sure that if taking full advantage of its character development system would be "mandatory" to complete it, more people would finish The Witcher 2?

I assume that people who play the Witcher games on "easy" are the ones playing them almost exclusively for the story and for this kind of people the hook needs to be in the story, while combat itself should be over and out of the way quickly.

However, one can argue that the reason those players play on "easy" is because combat, even on harder settings, does not represent a challenge neither of tactical (which is, in addition to story, my thing) nor of reflex nature and because of that it is viewed as a nuisance and an obstacle to enjoyment, instead of being an integral part of what makes the game fun.

This (as well as the whole discussion) perfectly relates to my personal experience with the first Witcher, the game the setting of which held a certain appeal for me, but its gameplay left a lot to be desired (with the lack of appeal of combat overshadowing the rest of the aspects, thanks to The Witcher being quite combat intensive), causing me to abandon the game in the middle of the second act, which I somehow managed to drag myself to thanks to the futile promise of the game getting better in the future. Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore'. Being a learning animal, I skipped The Witcher 2.
 
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