Editorial Lessons Learned While Working at BioWare

[Shemar]

The main problem with this strategy is that history has shown that you don't have to dumb a game down the the point where it's meaningless to appeal to a mass audience.

How exactly has history shown that? Given equal production values/cost, dumbed down games sell much better than complicated ones.

Look at the widespread popularity of old-school arcade games like Pac-Man or any of the 2D Super Mario games. Everyone has heard of these older games, and their popularity and influence on popular culture is undeniable.

Ironically, your examples are perfect illustrations of completely dumbed down games that any player of any age and level of intellect can learn to play in seconds.

We're already seeing the return of arcade-style games in the form of iphone apps and the like. In a few years that "casual games" industry will completely eclipse the current game industry. If these companies don't adapt and start focusing on niche markets (like the cRPG market!) with smaller production values ($500,000 budget for a game instead of $20 million) they'll go bankrupt as they continue to bleed customers who are increasingly becoming disinterested in the watered-down crap hardcore games have become.

Except these companies are not interested in grabbing the limited niche market income, they are interested in the mass market mother load, which is why they will keep dumbing down their games. Having fans that love you and a cult hit is great, but driving a Ferrari and living in a $1,000,000,000 home with your trophy wife, by making shit brainless games, is even better. And it doesn't matter that most of these idiots will crash and burn, since the market will only support so much, they are still going to try and get to it.

Which is why I am currently following the indie scene and not the mainstream scene. Watching vaporware after vaporware disappear is still better than watching action RPG-lite after action RPG-lite get published.

 

[Xor]

You're confusing "dumbed down" with accessibility. And I'm not talking about the buzzword version of accessibility, I mean how easy it is for someone who's never played a video game before to pick it up. You don't need to "dumb down" a game to make it accessible. And just because a game is accessible with easy controls doesn't mean it will be an easy game. Take games like the original Ninja Gaiden, for example - anyone can play them, but they can still be fucking hard. Good arcade games still have strong mechanics under the hood that make the game interesting.

If companies keep shooting for core gamers, they are going to go bankrupt. The core gamer market is shrinking (mostly because core games have been getting worse and worse).

 

[RPGMaster]

Fuck what a disappointing article. I was hoping for a tell-all exposé of the insidious nature of BioWare behind closed doors and all I got was a bucnh of shit butt-licking.

 

[Bigot_]

Ironically, your examples are perfect illustrations of completely dumbed down games that any player of any age and level of intellect can learn to play in seconds.

A game is accessible when it's easy to learn and hard to master, most likely because it has depth rather than pointless complexity

A game is dumbed down when it's easy to learn and easy to master because it's been stripped of everything that could possibly give it depth

There is a difference

 

[Shemar]

You're confusing "dumbed down" with accessibility. And I'm not talking about the buzzword version of accessibility, I mean how easy it is for someone who's never played a video game before to pick it up. You don't need to "dumb down" a game to make it accessible. And just because a game is accessible with easy controls doesn't mean it will be an easy game. Take games like the original Ninja Gaiden, for example - anyone can play them, but they can still be fucking hard. Good arcade games still have strong mechanics under the hood that make the game interesting.

Easy to learn (as in learn the rules and controls) is not the same as easy to play (as in being good and winning). The only type of games that accesibility does not imply dumbing down are the ones that depend more on reflexes/dexterity (or just plain old repetitive learned response) than brainpower. Specifically for RPGs (and really for almost any of the gaming genres I am interested in - RPG, strategy, simulation) easy to learn almost by default means dumbed down. I would consider a game based on player brainpower rahter than player reflexes, that is within the average human's capability to fully understand, dumbed down.

 

[SkepticsClaw]

Games can just have simple rules and yet great depth of course. Chess isn't a very hard game to learn, but it sure is hard game to be good at. The entire project of board games is to get this balance right, which is why board games mechanics tend to be so much more elegant and beautiful than those found in computer games, which usually rely on ugly brute force to do everything. Very few computer games take this mechanical elegance to heart; games like Angry Birds come the closest, which is why they do well. Most modern 3d games are stuffed with technical gimmicks that excite geeks greatly, but which your average human doesn't give a shit about.

I was having this conversation just yesterday with somebody, and this person was claiming that some shitty PSP racing game is a better game design than Tetris. The argument being 'because it vibrates when you go over gravel! And you can turn the PSP and the car turns but tetris is just blocks ololo'. I find it staggering that people hold opinions like these, but they're hardly uncommon.

Anyway, on topic, he's right to ignore the internet, it's a terrible place to gain valid criticism. Most posts will be random bilious insults, petty nitpicking or endless graphics whoring coupled with a series of virtual egos so enormous they attract planetry masses. On top of that it's impossible to tell the level of sincerity in anyone's posts. This is what makes forums great, but as a source of feedback?

If you want feedback, commission a proper game test with reports on what players liked and disliked and their reasons for doing so. Nobody will do that of course because it costs money, and these companies are ultimately all about making money.