Why most people don't finish video games
- Thread starter wolfgrimdark
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I am having this issue right now with the Witcher…except I have dragged myself all the way to Chapter IV and still plan to finish the game. I just keep thinking it will draw me in more, but so far it hasn't and I am sort of suffering through. So far…
The good: The choices have a big impact on the story (at least I think they do).
The bad: The choices don't always represent how I feel or think about each of the situations. The story doesn't always make a lot of sense (Alvin has been magically appeared in every new area since Chapter 2, living with someone new each time - as well as some of the other characters). There is a lot of venturing back and forth between recycled locations on boring quests. Dialog, even in the enhanced version, is still a little poorly done in parts (both in acting and writing - some lines, again, don't seem to make sense).
The combat is okay, but it's not usually that important of an aspect in a game for me. I really want to play the Witcher 2, which is why I have been so insistent on continuing through the first game (and because it is considered to be such a great RPG). I think the game would have benefited from a darker color palette, similar to the first Diablo, but the graphics are good otherwise. I was also have a lot of problems with the game continually crashing on me, though I think I have finally solved that issue. I wonder what it is that I'm just not getting about the experience.
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mrowakus
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I more or less agree with all you said earlier so there's no point in drilling it over again, I trust.
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.
Mr Bateman has adequately summarised the wall of text I was going to write here.
He is right. First of all, by defaulting to 'easy' mode the player decides this features is meaningless. Secondly, setting traps may be "fun" in the dumb kind of way - you may use it to see pretty lights, or things going boom - but can you name a single instance you have to consider it as a viable tactical option, where rolling wouldn't work? No? In other words it's not even an alternative - it's a pointless distraction. An instant gratification with little to no substance. It wouldn't be a problem if that was the only feature like that - but when you realise you can do away with most spells, bombs, daggers, feats, potions and just roll your way through the game, the game itself becomes kinda shallow.
It's like using only Qu[e]en in chess and winning each time. Sure, you could use all the other pieces, it may be even fun, but why should you if you can just use Queen and hit "I win" button. Except that for obvious reasons chess don't work that way, but TW series, Oblivion, Mass Effect series do.
It also doesn't help TW2 that for a story-driven RPG, not one element of character development affects its story - which is a good example of "divorcing" two facets of gameplay which should be inseparable from each other. Kudos for some decent C&C, though.
They would have more reasons to. I personally know people who were very disappointed by the constant "roll, roll" shallow nature of the game and didn't finish it.
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
Ehhm, I don't agree with that. You must consider fanboys, gushing over the "perfect" product - giving any feedback is just not worth the rage. Besides, I already stated that the industry is almost entirely hype-driven.
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mrowakus
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One also should question the wisdom of learning (over)complex rules in order to play a game. I mean… it's a damn game people… what will be the use of all the knowledge of the mechanics you have anywhere else in your life? If technical thinking is your thing shouldn't you be learning a programming language, maybe? On the other hand…
… the question is where to draw the line between mechanics going in the way of gameplay and reinforcing it? There's this deep sentiment for the times gone by on the 'Dex and somewhat in here where you had more options under your control, and could do more things. People are actually missing features such as having to give food rations to your party members, or preparing spells from components, or having different ammo for guns. I, for one thing, regret that there's no way to creatively utilise available to you means. For instance, mages should be more than just mobile artillery of buffers, their abilites should allow them to pass through a crack in the wall, listen to a conversation in the guise of the speaker's favourite dog, fly over a chasm in the dungeon and attatch the rope so that the rest of the party can safely go on, freeze a river to cross it etc. Will you see that in any game today or the near future… No.
Then there are those who say it's all too complex or redundant or obscure or above all "confusing" to take any enjoyment from. Thus, we get all the dumbing down, copy-pasta design. I think there's no harm in complex mechanics as long as you know they are there because you've learned about them in fun way, and that using them will net you some benefits you wouldn't have obtained otherwise.
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Fnord
SasqWatch
I'm just going to bed, a longer response to everything that has been posted will probably come tomorrow.
I can honestly say that learning the Battletech rules has done a lot more for my personal enjoyment of life in general than learning any of the programming languages that I've learn ever did (those are BASIC, C++, Java & MATLab, with MATLab being the only one of the programming languages that I know that has actually proven to be useful to me, apart from some tiny details. C++ might be considered semi-useful as it made learning MATLab easier). Learning things for the sake of learning can be fun, no doubt about it, but for the most part a lot of the knowledge that deeper knowledge that we acquire is rather pointless, apart from the fact that it makes us feel good about ourselves for having it, and it can sometimes even be detrimental to our social standing. Have you ever killed a discussion by simply knowing too much?
And many grand strategy games have a lot of historical information in them, things that you will learn by just playing the games, even if you don't want to (Victoria 2 for an example has a substantial amount of fluff text, and most of it is very historically accurate).
Of course, some games will help spread misinformation, like Rome: Total war. I've lost count on how many times people have talked about the Romans often using pigs that they light on fire as a weapon, in the form of a "fun fact" (well, actually I have not lost count of it. 6 times.) Yes, there is one source that talk about one time when they did that (to scare elephants), but that is it. It was not a common weapon, and if my memory serves, the author of the text was not even alive when the even was supposed to have happened, so the source should be taken with a pinch of salt.
But tangential learning through games is not a bad thing, and you often get that from these complex grand strategy games.
Vii Zafira
Oh desire!
ChibiMrowak said:
Nowhere. That's an entirely subjective point. I.E: For me a flight simulator is a game where mechanics get in the way of the pure challenge that's fun for me, thus I don't like them. For you the mechanics might be the challenge and thus they are the fun itself, thus you like them.
A great deal of my argument was based around that, actually.
But can you really eliminate players, the audience out of it?
You probably can, but only if that audience is very strictly defined and, as some of my previous posts imply, I think defining the target audience precisely is often close to impossible.
I normally rather dislike markedly "relativistic" approach to discussing games (and a lot of other stuff), because it tends to spin things in a "but that´s, like, your opinion, man" direction and that tends to be boring, thus if we were discussing The Witcher 2 in a different context, I would just agree with most of what´s been said about it in this thread (to some degree), but in this particular context I feel the target audience of the game needs to be defined first, otherwise adjectives like "meaningful" won´t be, err, meaningful enough.
They may not want combat to be challenging, but some may still appreciate diverse portfolio of combat options. For these, stuff like traps or fireball may still be meaningful.
That´s certainly one possible group of players.
Well, when did you actually realize this?
Because, from what I remember of my playthrough (on hard), for me the game felt well balanced and adequately challenging during prologue and the first chapter, then I felt it became generally too easy for that difficulty setting (besides Draugr and that optional sorta hidden scenario in ch3), but it still didn´t feel like it´s mainly because of balance of character abilities between each other, but because of inadequate encounter design.
It didn´t really occur to me to try to tackle all encounters without any skill investments, because the first chapter felt still adequately challenging even though I was taking extensive advantage of the skill system (and I´d very likely found combat tedious without doing so).
At any rate, and here we´re getting to that target audience thing again, for me the game felt adequately challenging on hard for most of the time (I´d just add few more challenging scenarios in the later chapters and that would be it), for you it seems it didn´t.
To me that level of challenge mostly felt like a good incentive to take advantage of the skill system, it seems like to you it didn´t.
Eventually I did find all sort of unbalances in the skill system and the action-RPG "marriage", but, well, by that time I was almost finished with the playthrough anyway
. Overall, we could say that, ex post, I was a member of target audience in this regard and you probably were not.
Now, the question is if the game was adjusted to your liking, whether I would still remain a member of target audience or not. I, personally, very likely would, but would these adjustments really result in a "net gain"?
I mean:
How about, because
Do people who play a game on hard play it to "beat it on hard", or to "have fun"?
Is a game being more authoritative in this regard (aka having effectivity of combat options more equalized) actually bound to provide more "fun" (and likeliness to be completed) than a game which provides some "I win!" buttons (and thus, among other things, potentially creates an illusion of being "badass" for those who finished it on highest difficulty via extensive "abuse" of these), as well as other options for those who want to play in more diverse ways (like, for example play the game more as an cRPG, thus relying more on character abilities, as opposed to play the game more as an action game, thus relying more on reflects, aka roll roll for example)?
Personally I definitely prefer the "authoritative" design and in the case of action/RPG "marriage" between action and RPG being as harmonious as possible (I consider G2: NoTR to be probably best example of this), but am I actually part of the majority in this (among players who like their games feeling challenging)?
That´s not a rhetorical question. I´m not really sure about the answer
.TL;DR - Can we be sure that majority of players who play single player games actually prefer them "balanced"? I´d guess that majority of those who frequently discuss them probably do, because they likely tend to be more conscious about this stuff, but the rest?
By feedback I meant purchase of a next title, specifically.
If we abstract from people who purchased a game being fluctuating individuals and consider them being a single entity which bought a game, than it would seem the fact that major chunk of this entity hasn´t completed that game does not have much influence on a purchase of a next game from the same company, or a similar game.
A pretty unfounded assumption, but there you have it
.
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mrowakus
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YES, Yes, yes… so that's the entire point I was trying to make earlier. Learning rules by having fun, not by saying "shit, 8 to 10 more sessions before I grasp the system". There must be something in it for you. The best case is - learning the system itself is fun. The mediocre case is - playing the game is fun despite having to learn the rules. The worst case is - rules obscuring the gameplay entirely so you have no reason the learn them.
Forgive me… this is going to be about semantics most of the time. Feel free to quote yourself if that was already covered.
Correct me if I am wrong: as I understood the gist of what you wrote the mechanics itself should not be the challenge in any game. I mean by definition mechanics serve to do something - either they are way for creating challenge (e.g. food rations), setting gameplay rules (turn based game) or dealing with the challenge (character using anti-armour ammo against a tank). Thus the challenge should lie in using them and accounting for them in the "contest of wits", not in the process of learning them - which should be a pleasure at all times, regardless of how advanced the player is. This is what I understood from your posts earlier.
And frankly I don't believe game mechanics should be any more than that. If game mechanics obscure the "contest of wits" there's something fishy with them. In a flight simulator example, it's obvious that you are not interested in playing not because of the game mechanics itself, but of the "hook" those game mechanics try to realise i.e. in a true plane simulator you need to account for velocity, gravitational pull, accelleration etc. - otherwise it wouldn't be a simulator, and hence it wouldn't "hook" the right audience. If you wanted to experience flying a plane the way it is, you wouldn't bat an eye at the mechanics, and learning about them wouldn't be a challenge (but using those mechanics would). Since you are not interested in that (there's no hook) you just don't play it.
As an experiment try to imagine an rpg (since it's RPG subforum) where you have one character you can customize (Planescape-like) - best of all, a witch. Now imagine the borderline of the mechanics in that game. What stats your character could have, what spells you could use, what could you do with those spells, how they are used, what items you could use and how, how can you interact with NPCs, can you use spells to influence your interaction with NPCs, do NPCs recognize the fact you are witch, does your reputation affect you relations with other people, do clothes you wear affect your relations etc. etc. Note that these are not mechanics yet.
I think that as long as the mechanics implementing the features in such game
a) stemmed from common sense and thus were executed automatically (e.g. reputation, clothes you wear)
b) were reasonably dosed (more complex spell selection, learned overtime, more complex interactions)
c) left element of experimentation making you actively learn (allowing to create your own spells and letting use them in interesting way e.g. to charm an eagle to have him spy on someone and then enlarge it some time later to use it as a mount)
d) were intuitive (executed through a tidy interface)
e) were learned from observing the gameworld and your opponnents' actions.
you would have no problem grasping them (even if they were countless) in next to no time, although perhaps I flight simulator player would.
@DeepO
Sorry bro. I have no steam left in me now. Till tomorrow then.
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I felt exactly the same way when playing TW2 and ME2, what is the purpose of all those spells if only a few ever needs to be used. Every feature should serve a purpose.
I think people have different approaches to this situation though. If we imagine a hypothetical game that has a red spell and a blue spell, people will choose between them based on different criteria.
- The 'gamer' approach is to select the spell that works best in the current circumstances. If the opponent has a weakness to blue spells gamers like you and me would choose the blue spell.
- Another approach is to use the blue spell because the player feels like using a blue spell today. Thats more of a sandbox or artistic approach. People who are into simulations probably also go in this category because they are not playing to win but to explore the system.
- The third approach is to choose the blue spell because it results in a unique gameplay style. This is akin to playing a particular class because the player likes the type of gameplay it offers. I think TW2 attempted something like this, but it's hard to pull of because it requires a very accurate balance. If the red spell is superior people who prefer blue spell gameplay will feel cheated.
Of course most players fall into several categories, I'm just trying to highlight how I think we make those decisions, and what criterias we use.
I still think it's better if all features serve a purpose because that would accomodate all playstyles.
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Patrick Bateman
Vice President
There is really no need for a very precise definition and in fact would bog down the discussion, since there are many particular types of players, resulting in cases where a game can appeal to one or more types of players and a single player may enjoy one or many types of games, resulting in a need to precisely define target audience for every single game.
An approximate one would do, even a circular one (as long as the genre, or even some of its features, are clearly defined), like: "Hearts of Iron III is a game that targets people who like to play grand strategy games". Of course, we can expand that that includes people who like history, politics, warfare simulation with all its aspects (military strategy, diplomacy, economics, politics, etc.) and particularly World war II era, and inevitably, as the nature of the game dictates, don't mind learning the rules that enable faithful simulation of those aspects.
Once game is designed, it is pretty clear what kind of players will be drawn to this game. It is those players whose judgement of the quality of the game is important.
It is a mistake trying to "convert" players and make them like certain genres they have no interest in, in fact that is a root of a mistaken approach of eliminating features that appeal to fans of the genre a game belongs to in favour of appealing to fans of other genres (example: the remake of JA 2 in progress that I call Jagged Alliance 2: Retarded).
There is an additional flaw by developers that has to be taken into account, and that is false advertising. Games are often marketed as having certain features that they in fact do not have, or their role in the game is so minor that it can be considered nothing but a marketing gimmick (I remember Oblivion turning Codex into an ESF refugee camp because of that). This often results in people obtaining the game, expecting to enjoy it, torturing themselves playing it for a while, until the revelation hits them that the game doesn't contain the feature that makes it fun for them, realizing that they were duped and their time (and possibly money) was spent in vain.
We can be nice and put this under "bad design", given that knowledge about the type of the game you're making is crucial to the design process, or we can call this false advertising.
Do people who play a game on hard play it to "beat it on hard", or to "have fun"?
Is a game being more authoritative in this regard (aka having effectivity of combat options more equalized) actually bound to provide more "fun" (and likeliness to be completed) than a game which provides some "I win!" buttons (and thus, among other things, potentially creates an illusion of being "badass" for those who finished it on highest difficulty via extensive "abuse" of these), as well as other options for those who want to play in more diverse ways (like, for example play the game more as an cRPG, thus relying more on character abilities, as opposed to play the game more as an action game, thus relying more on reflects, aka roll roll for example)?
Personally I definitely prefer the "authoritative" design and in the case of action/RPG "marriage" between action and RPG being as harmonious as possible (I consider G2: NoTR to be probably best example of this), but am I actually part of the majority in this (among players who like their games feeling challenging)?
That´s not a rhetorical question. I´m not really sure about the answer
There is a good way to put this to rest without answering the question directly: in order to appeal to different type of players, the game can introduce difficulty settings. In that sense, pleasing "casual" players who like easy combat is easy. However, to please the players who want tactical challenge, the game still has to provide it on harder settings. In this case, you can still have an easy time playing it on easy if you want to and you still have a reflex type of challenge (as that's built into the combat system), but now you have tactical challenge as well.
As for the people playing the game just "to beat it on hard", unless there is fun in the process of playing involved, but only in winning itself, this can be classified as compulsive behaviour, which is irrational, hence it should be cut from the discussion (with additional observation that such people almost always finish games).
At the end, I'd like to commend Mrowak's posts, and reiterate that (minimal) complexity of the rules is inherent to the nature of a particular game and that a mark of good design is hitting exactly that complexity level, i.e. the level where rules should be neither added (as that would not add to tactical depth of a game) nor subtracted (resulting in reduction of tactical depth, thus dumbing down). It is an additional task of the developer to build the game with maximum depth from those rules. Easier said than done, obviously.
Fnord
SasqWatch
It sounds like you are describing some rather poor games actually. A good complex game should introduce new and interesting choices, expanding upon the options and possibilities found in the game. While sadly a lot of complex games do fall into the trap of just introducing more and more layers of complexity, without each additional layer actually adding anything new and interesting to the game, a good complex game won't. Also, all good complex games will be built on a foundation of an internal logic, that the game will use through for most things. Games that creates a lot of exceptions to this internal logic are almost always poorly designed, this internal logic should not be compromised, or the game will soon become a mess of hard to learn rules and exceptions. Battletech is an example of a game with a strong internal logic. The game might be complex, but due to it sticking to its internal logic, you can usually understand how a rule is supposed to work by just applying the logic. And this is a game that offers a lot of interesting options to the players, just like a good complex game should. I managed to teach a person who was brand new to wargaming how to play the game in just 2h, and starting with Battletech is like diving into the deep end of the pool without first learning how to swim (heck, the game takes into account the way smoke moves from a forest fire and its obscuring effects, if you want it to (optional rule), which might give you an idea about how complex it actually is)
One huge advantage of these games is that they are rarely very predictable, as each player has so many options to consider and different players value such vastly different things. Many simpler games don't though. I'm not going to use Go as an example because: A, Go is an incredibly well designed game that actually manages to overcome many of the limitations of a more simple approach, and B, because I've only played go 4 times, and thus don't consider myself all that familiar with the game. But chess is a game that I do know. And one of the main problem with chess is that it is a game that is not purely about skill, but also about learning things by heart. You can tell a lot about how the game will go purely based on the players opening moves. People have written books about "ideal moves". If A then do B type of scenarios. Chess is as much a test of wits & intelligence as it is a test of your ability to learn the different scenarios by heart.
Or just take Icewind Dale as an example (a game that I suspect that most of us are familiar with). The AD&D ruleset is actually rather complex, but it does also give you a lot of options. Party design, for an example, gives you a whole slew of options. What classes you pick, what skills you pick, what spells you pick all will impact the game and how it is played. And once you start to go up in level, the amount of choices that you get just increase. How will you tackle that powerfull foe? Well, you could try to lower its stats with some spells, you could just try to nuke it down as fast as possible, you could try to do a combination of the two, lowering its resistance and then using its weakened state to hit it with something that it is now weak against. You could try to buff your own party, make it more powerful instead, or you could try to bypass the encounter altogether. And how will you do these things? These options would not be possible with a simpler system in place.
And yes, we do agree at the very core of where things are at, it is when it comes down to the details of things that we start to disagree with each other.
I really should not post just before going to bed
Yes, we do at large agree here.
Elwro
Filthy Codex Spy
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There are many bad things about the Witcher, but just trust me that this thing makes perfect sense after you've finished the game!
edit: but I admit I really had to drag myself through the fights in the burning district...
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Patrick Bateman
Vice President
Unless players' skill levels differ significantly, memorization isn't a factor.
People who play chess only recreationally and at lower skill levels tend not to memorize openings.
Only at the higher competitive levels people memorize openings, but since their skill level is approximately equal, they are usually both equally good at it (making the opening play automatic), which eliminates memorization as a factor. In addition, openings tend to last only a few moves. Once midgame is reached, real skill takes over again, since there are too many options available and an optimal game is impossible to calculate (as can be demonstrated once the game is represented as a search tree).
Vii Zafira
Oh desire!
That doesn't change the simple fact that you need technical knowledge to play those games.
In your AD&D example any challenge the game can present would be testing my knowledge and understanding of the rules first, and my reasoning second.
And I'll add a different kind of argument now: If I have the time and the will to invest that effort in studying and learning a topic shouldn't I be using it to raise even more my notes at school, learning a new language, or acquiring an actual skill, like playing an instrument?
Even if we were to mention just Chess, Go, and Shogi that's still more depth than I will probably be able to master in a single lifetime times three, yet all of those are easy to learn games. Even Shogi, which is quite harder to learn than chess, is several orders of magnitude easier to learn than a wargame.
How can I justify spending that kind of time and effort on a mechanically complex game when there are deep yet accesible options? While I am not criticizing those who take the other path I believe it should be quite easy to understand where I am coming from in my dislike, as complexity is not something I care for and at the same time would be getting in the way on things I do care for.
Fnord said:
You don't have to learn such things to play the game as they aren't part of the basic rules of the game but codifications of the experience of past players.
I.E: Streaming and lane switching are not parts of a shoot 'em up basic ruleset but standard maneuvers all the players learn sooner or later, either by studying former players or from their own experience.
And from the begining the argument was about the basic rules you need to learn to play the game.
ChibiMrowak said:
Indeedy.
However, we can't write off that some people might be interested in something other than the contest itself and is finding pleasure on it.
I.E: I love Poupeegirl and The Sims games yet there's no contest at all in them.
So we can't really say that the contest is, in itself, the only source of enjoyment with games.
ChibiMrowak said:
It is a testament to how well you understand me that the examples of common sense you give me are related to popularity and fashion.
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Patrick Bateman
Vice President
To be fair, when talking about games with complex rulesets I haven't encountered one yet that can compare to real life work in complexity and time requirements to learn the ruleset. Maybe someone who plays flight simulators and similar games where the ruleset appears very complex can comment on that.
Paradox grand strategies certainly don't compete with RL activities in "complexity of rules". In fact, my current project involves writing a time and resource efficient online algorithm for optimization of a low-medium volume / high variety manufacturing process (thankfully, I'm far ahead of schedule, which means a lot of spare time) and this is a completely different ballgame from the way manufacturing is handled in, for example, Hearts of Iron III, and the skillset involved in this is huge and took and still takes years to develop. With a time investment needed to learn a Paradox game, only a small advancement in needed RL skills is possible. An important thing to keep in mind is that both game and work should generally be fun (though the work consists of the highest highs and the lowest lows that no game can duplicate).
To clarify, this doesn't detract from the point that learning those rules still takes extra time that many people have no motivation to invest, since they prefer alternatives with the simple ruleset.
Paradox grand strategies certainly don't compete with RL activities in "complexity of rules". In fact, my current project involves writing a time and resource efficient online algorithm for optimization of a low-medium volume / high variety manufacturing process (thankfully, I'm far ahead of schedule, which means a lot of spare time) and this is a completely different ballgame from the way manufacturing is handled in, for example, Hearts of Iron III, and the skillset involved in this is huge and took and still takes years to develop. With a time investment needed to learn a Paradox game, only a small advancement in needed RL skills is possible. An important thing to keep in mind is that both game and work should generally be fun (though the work consists of the highest highs and the lowest lows that no game can duplicate).
To clarify, this doesn't detract from the point that learning those rules still takes extra time that many people have no motivation to invest, since they prefer alternatives with the simple ruleset.
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Vii Zafira
Oh desire!
@ Patrick
You are right. However, when time is indeed a limited commodity investing even a single day in something means that's a single day less you have to invest in something else, and you are thus a single day behind of where you could have been if you hadn't invested it badly.
That single day may not amount to much by itself, but that single lost day may be what lies between you and an opportunity that will go away never to return. And many single days make a year, in the end.
So when you invest an X amount of time into learning a certain technical knowledge that's still an X amount of time you could have invested into learning a different knowledge or developing a different skill, and an X amount of time you will never recover no matter what. And those X amounts of time keep piling up.
And for all you know you could drop dead tomorrow. Is learning a needlessly complex videogame the best way to invest what could be your last day on earth?
I better stop before I get in creepy girl mode.
You are right. However, when time is indeed a limited commodity investing even a single day in something means that's a single day less you have to invest in something else, and you are thus a single day behind of where you could have been if you hadn't invested it badly.
That single day may not amount to much by itself, but that single lost day may be what lies between you and an opportunity that will go away never to return. And many single days make a year, in the end.
So when you invest an X amount of time into learning a certain technical knowledge that's still an X amount of time you could have invested into learning a different knowledge or developing a different skill, and an X amount of time you will never recover no matter what. And those X amounts of time keep piling up.
And for all you know you could drop dead tomorrow. Is learning a needlessly complex videogame the best way to invest what could be your last day on earth?
I better stop before I get in creepy girl mode.
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D
DArtagnan
Guest
Time is constant and linear regardless of your level of investment. If you spend your day playing Tetris - that's a day lost where you haven't learned much at all. Well, except perhaps for entering a hypnotic state.
So, unless you stay away from learning a complex game to ACTUALLY commit to learning something you deem more "worthwhile" - then there's no logical support for the invesment argument.
Sure, it's a viable argument that entertaining yourself is a "waste" of time - but I find it's pretty rare that people spend all their time doing something truly worthwhile. I certainly don't meet many who manage that.
So, seeing as I have a lot of free time that I can't seem to commit to worthwhile causes, I most definitely prefer a game that rewards me for my investment. My brain needs a lot of shit going on to feel satisfied - and I can't numb myself enough to enjoy Farmville indefinitely.
Also, I would argue that simply exposing your brain to a complex series of challenges and choices - is a LOT more worthwhile than passively receiving entertainment. That's because I think the brain benefits in everyday life from being challenged.
Fnord
SasqWatch
In my experience anyone who players chess at some form of regular basis will soon pick up on a lot of these. While a competitive player will spend a lot of his/her spare time studying chess moves and try to memorize everything that he/she can, even a relatively casual player will not only learn the basic opening moves and what they mean, but also what different scenarios in the game (relative position of certain pieces) will result in. And this is a problem for many of the more "simple" games that don't have a large luck factor (you are not going to be able to predict a game of Munchkin unless you have arranged the cards beforehand). I've seen semi-skilled chess players play games against bright but inexperienced chess players on auto-pilot, they just, to a large degree, played the game based on the previously memorized patterns. All games have a degree of this, of course, but the less possible scenarios you introduce, the more this will be an issue (this is by the way why I'm also a proponent of some kind of some kind of luck factor in games, but one that can be manipulated and where the game should have enough dice rolls (or similar) in total for a (bad)luck streak to have time to even out, but that is a debate for a topic on game design)
While it is of course in part a test of your knowledge of the ruleset, it would be more of a test of your ability to creatively use the tools that are given to you.
Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is not something that I find to be all that useful. It sure is fun, but I don't see an inherent value in knowledge. In fact, knowing too much can be a bit of a social handicap (conversation killer!). I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with seeking out knowledge either (or else I would be a self hater, considering the fact that I have read a few hundred books in my life about different interesting topics). A lot of the knowledge that I have gathered through my life has proven to be far less useful to me than learning complex rulesets. And also, by learning rules you do at the same time learn how to learn, often in a far more efficient way than you would if you say would read a few books on a topic. When learning rules you have a "test" at the end, in the form of playing the game, so you are basically "forced" to learn how things work, preferably relatively swiftly. That sure as heck has been more useful to me than reading that 900page book abut the crusades that took place around the Baltic sea (though that book was interesting, and put a lot of the things that I probably should have learnt in school but never did because I learnt stupid incorrect fact about vikings based on the national romatic views of the early 19th century and not the actual contemporary sources (sorry, I've spent years of my life trying to undo the harm that elementary & high school did to my knowledge about different topics, so it is a subject that does annoy me a bit. At least in high school I had come to the point where I knew how to find proper sources, and spent way too much time arguing with my teachers about things that I thought was incorrect. That was when I was not playing quake on class time. Oftentime no knowledge is better than faulty knowledge, as learning something new is relatively easy, while re-learning is hard), in proper perspective).
