Not Accessibility, but Dumbing Down

[Delterius]

The flaw of a sales analysis is the outdated assumption that people actually play the games they buy.

 

[BBMorti]

Advanced math putting a brutal road block for the innocent casual gamers. Could anyone give an example of one of those advanced math games?

 

[Atlantico]

Then you must remember my original post:

Do you remember this post you made?

Well yes, that is why Mass Effect sells better than Baldur's Gate, and why Skyrim sells better than Morrowind, let alone Pillars or Age of Decadence. Is it not obvious for everyone?

That's when you took the proverbial shotgun and aimed it at your proverbial foot and pulled the proverbial trigger.

 

[KyivAfter12am]

Then you must remember my original post:

Do you remember this post you made?

Well yes, that is why Mass Effect sells better than Baldur's Gate, and why Skyrim sells better than Morrowind, let alone Pillars or Age of Decadence. Is it not obvious for everyone?

That's when you took the proverbial shotgun and aimed it at your proverbial foot and pulled the proverbial trigger.

I can't agree with this assessment. Mass Effect or Skyrim do sell better than BG, even if you account for the "ten-fold" growth of the market. If you don't like to compare games from different decades, they also sell better than PoE and AoD, which came out later. To make the connection to the point we agreed to hold even clearer, Mass Effect is closer to a shooter than to a "hardcore" RPG.

 

[Ziem]

numbers are racist

 

[Atlantico]

To make the connection to the point we agreed to hold even clearer, Mass Effect is closer to a shooter than to a "hardcore" RPG.

http://careers.ea.com/marketing

For you my friend. You'll fit right in.

 

[KyivAfter12am]

To make the connection to the point we agreed to hold even clearer, Mass Effect is closer to a shooter than to a "hardcore" RPG.

http://careers.ea.com/marketing

For you my friend. You'll fit right in.

This is the best argument you've made so far in this discussion.

 

[Delterius]

To make the connection to the point we agreed to hold even clearer, Mass Effect is closer to a shooter than to a "hardcore" RPG.

http://careers.ea.com/marketing

For you my friend. You'll fit right in.

Good marketers actually sell your product. The mediocre resign themselves to what focus groups tell them. Case in point, all shooters are the same. There's nothing more to the brand and sales of a shooter than the fact that its a shooter.

 

[Atlantico]

This is the best argument you've made so far in this discussion.

Sure, the failing gaming industry thinks exactly like you do, the fact remains that RPGs are disturbingly popular and have been since PC games were first a thing. But focus groups and marketing and you live in a bubble where there is such a thing as an average customer, a fantastical entity which apparently only likes shooters.

Your claim that they don't sell as much as other games is just not true, they do sell as much as other games, there's just less of them. The best selling game of all time is probably WoW. An RPG.

 

[v1rus]

The "I play the game for the story" crowd don't like stats.

Games should be played for conjoined story and numbers.

 

[Machocruz]

The flaw of a sales analysis is the outdated assumption that people actually play the games they buy.

Also -which keeps being repeated in this thread with no concrete evidence to support it- that the majority of buyers are informed about the less obvious differences between one game in a series or genre and another, like whether one has less math than another.

 

[J1M]

f you make it incredibly complex from the get go, the game simply won't sell because a lot of people won't even bother learning to play a game that may not even be fun.

Yeah, but for the majority of players, having to decide on 5 stat scores plus selecting maybe a small number of skills on character creation is already more than they can handle.
Because they are fucking idiots and there just is no other way to put it. Sorry to break your hippie fantasies, but yes, people come with varying qualities of brainpower, and no, they should not all be treated equally.

Of course there are those who could handle it but simply don't want to. Either at the moment or generally. But why would you even care about them? There's no way they'll ever like a stat-heavy game, no matter how late you introduce that complexity. It is absurd.

I'm all for not overwhelming people with a ton of numbers from the very start, at least optionally. For example, Arcanum's initial character creation is the basic example of "too much input" at the start. Instead, it should be a basic choice of directions to start with (maybe just selecting attributes) and the first real full stat screen should be shown after a few level-ups.
But what someone perceives as "a ton of numbers" varies wildly.

Any product that tries to please everyone will end up pleasing nobody. Compromise truly is the death of creativity.
It is much better to have a simple game for casuals and a complex one for the hardcore crowd than trying to create one game that will draw both in (hint: such a game doesn't exist, never has, never will).

I don't know man, I bet sigourn has played plenty of accessible FPS games that didn't want to overwhelm the non-hardcore FPS crowd with shooting, so they slowly introduced concepts like moving and turning over the first third of the game. Then, at about half-way through they decide to introduce the first-person perspective and right before the climax of the action they hand the player a gun.

 

[J1M]

I'm kind of leaning towards a neutral position now. Fucking PoE. I mean, I enjoy games that are complex, stats, puzzles, etc. I don't want to lose that. However, I'm far more interested in games that have had a careful and considered approach. PoE was just an obtuse diarrhea sandwich that you could easily chokedown, even on the hardest difficulties, without knowing everything about its systems.

What if, I'm just spit-balling here, but what if character creation was restricted to basic race/perks/stats and then you start the game in a base class, say, peasant. Then, if you want to advance to another class, you meet certain reqs, along with having to impress your tutor, and you do this for every party member. I don't know exactly what this would change though, but it would require the game to inform your decisions before you make them while also preserving the complexity of older, time tested standards. Also, with classes come restrictions, and thats never a bad thing.

The problem with this is that it makes the first-half of the game bland for everyone, including those that know the systems.

 

[Sigourn]

I don't know man, I bet sigourn has played plenty of accessible FPS games that didn't want to overwhelm the non-hardcore FPS crowd with shooting, so they slowly introduced concepts like moving and turning over the first third of the game. Then, at about half-way through they decide to introduce the first-person perspective and right before the climax of the action they hand the player a gun.

Do you argue like this outside of the Internet, or do you just do it where people won't call you out for being a retard?

 

[J1M]

But is it dumbing down when there's a pop up telling you what a stat/skill does do exactly without having to read the manual (which nobody will)??

Is it dumbing down to have a training section/level where the basic mechanics are shoved in your face so that they stick??

Here's a good example. Do you guys still remember that awful, awful mandatory training level in Dragon Age 2 where you had awesome stats and were unkillable (this was immediately explained as the storyteller (Varric) talking bullshit)? So many trash mobs to click on, it was p bad, huh? But then do you remember that video of Chris Avellone playing Arcanum and completely disregarding Virgil's suggestion to use the world map and just trying to walk to Shrouded Hills manually, thru the mountains full of wolves?

Tutorial campaigns are great and have been out of favor for too long. They create a situation where the player doesn't mind being condescended to about basic mechanics. They are skip-able, unlike lengthy beginner sections, improving the game for advanced or repeat players.

 

[Lurker King]

This is a pointless discussion. All games are overly complex if you aren't used to their genre. All genres, not just RPGs, can be dumbed down to appeal to that market.

It’s not a pointless discussion because there are so many misconceptions about the genre and so many action games mislabeled as cRPGs that attempts to dumb down the genre to appeal to the market are perceived as legitimate design choices. This is the main point: cRPGs represent a dying culture because most developers don’t care about these systems and the next generation was left hanging.

 

[Sigourn]

This is a pointless discussion. All games are overly complex if you aren't used to their genre.

Don't be retarded. Strategy games and RPGs are some of the most complex genres out there. It's no wonder it's also two of the genres that sell less compared to other genres, like sports, first person shooters, adventure games or "cinematic" games.

I didn't know soccer rules despite it being my country's most popular sport and one week later I knew everything I needed to know just by playing PES 2011.

 

[buru5]

Meanwhile I still don't know how the fuck football is played despite living in the south and having a family full of football fanatics. I'd say some sports are fairly complex, but I also haven't tried very hard to understand it.

 

[Sigourn]

Meanwhile I still don't know how the fuck football is played despite living in the south and having a family full of football fanatics. I'd say some sports are fairly complex, but I also haven't tried very hard to understand it.

What "football"? Football or American football? If the later, beats me: the sport looks fucking stupid and it probably doesn't even make sense. But soccer is fairly easy to understand, especially so in a videogame where the referee is controlled by the AI. I'd say the hardest part of football is memorizing the rules for calling fouls, and even then it's fairly easy to not commit fouls (especially so in a videogame where the only fouls you can commit are tripping your rival or mistiming a tackle).

 

[buru5]

American Football

 

[J1M]

This is exactly what we are talking about.

Yes, indie games just don't sell like they used to... ? Frankly speaking, these number heavy games like PoE sold more than most indie games dream of selling, no matter how "accessible" they are. So you know, you're also wrong about that.

Why do you think the "number heavy games" are indie these days? Might it be because the AAA studios know they won't sell enough of them to cover the budget?

Football Manager disagrees. It is literally a spreadsheet. With an engaging theme, even graphics are optional. Including for sports-bros, most of whom play fantasy sports leagues.

 

[J1M]

I don't know man, I bet sigourn has played plenty of accessible FPS games that didn't want to overwhelm the non-hardcore FPS crowd with shooting, so they slowly introduced concepts like moving and turning over the first third of the game. Then, at about half-way through they decide to introduce the first-person perspective and right before the climax of the action they hand the player a gun.

Do you argue like this outside of the Internet, or do you just do it where people won't call you out for being a retard?

Why would I settle for simply refuting your point, when I can provide the reader some entertainment as well? If you want to call me a retard, at least try it with a little creativity.

 

[Black Angel]

Don't be retarded. Strategy games and RPGs are some of the most complex genres out there. It's no wonder it's also two of the genres that sell less compared to other genres, like sports, first person shooters, adventure games or "cinematic" games.

Boy, you really are serious when you talk about advanced math, aren't you?

 

[Iznaliu]

Yeah, but that's a place for Retarded Peop... oh... sorry. Yeah. You are right. PoE hard! Make e-z 4 BIG sales! Hard? No sale! Me no want!

I'm not saying I agree with it; I'm saying that's the general consensus.

 

[Daemongar]

Yeah, but that's a place for Retarded Peop... oh... sorry. Yeah. You are right. PoE hard! Make e-z 4 BIG sales! Hard? No sale! Me no want!

I'm not saying I agree with it; I'm saying that's the general consensus.

Hey, nothing personal. I understand. Just that I think that "complexity" isn't usually a first impression type review feature/problem. Its not something most folks say "this game is too difficult for me." That would be a strange exclamation, but I suppose I understand your point. I think SimCity may have a claim to being too difficult or such, based on how much micromanagement. Just don't believe any RPG ever made me stop, pause, and say "This is too esoteric." There are conventions in RPGs and you either are in it, or you aren't. I don't have sympathy for folks who want Oblivion with every release.