The "Dumbing Down" of Gaming

[Kekvit Irae]

Actually, SSI came out with come great games, not just the craptastic clones. More specifically Stronghold, Eye of the Beholder (1 and 2), Dark Sun, and Dungeon Hack.
I'd take those games over the more modern dumbed-down modern games like Shadowrun any day.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Pretty much all you need these days is a large chested female brandishing a gun and a sword, making a messy headshot on critter A while simultaneously decapitating critter B in some action-packed setting, swearing up a storm while doing so, with huge explosions in the background.

That sounds a lot like the WoW banner/trailer

[Rodion Romanovich]

@topic: I think dumbing down of most games is temporary, soon we'll see a market with more challenging and deep games again. I suspect this will happen in around 3-5 years from now.

One problem is that dumbed down games are easier to market these days. Which game looks most impressive? One that has big explosions and plenty of action visible in the trailer, or one that has very good puzzles to solve and a toned down, realistic combat? You simply can't demonstrate good puzzles and tactical combat well in a trailer, but big explosions and graphics are very visible. The deeper games would benefit a lot from more players trying out game demos instead of looking at trailers.

[doc_bean]

@topic: I think dumbing down of most games is temporary, soon we'll see a market with more challenging and deep games again. I suspect this will happen in around 3-5 years from now.

GalCiv2 is quite popular, EUIII had a major release and is found in most retail stores, there still is a market for complex games and they are still being made, it's just that more non-complex games are being made, that segment of the market grew exponentially.

Are there really less 'complex' (and still good) games being made these days than 10years ago ?

Even if that were true, the open source and freeware community still provides us with the occasional gem, like Wesnoth.

[Adrian II]

Good topic, good posts - particularly the opening post. My two cents wouldn't be worth the copper they are minted from, but I hope we will see more contributions from experienced gamers and hopefully insiders to the industry. Is Captain Fishpants still around? I would surely appreciate a circumbobulation of the subject from his hand.

[Dunhill]

I'm seeing the opposite end of the spectrum lately. The independent developers seem to have access to more resources lately, and many of the games that I'm purchasing are what I would call grognard level. These are complex games that are made by strategy gamers to be played on relatively high-performance PCs.

These developers aren't making as much in sales, but they are getting support from mid-level publishers such as Matrix. They also benefit from a market niche with high loyalty and levels of cash (I think I paid $100+ for WITP). Folks playing these games grew up with Avalon Hill and are now professionals who want a serious game to enjoy.

We are also willing to put down some money for a good mod as well, such as Red Orchestra, to blow off steam. I appreciate this type of realism and don't think the game is dumb at all. If anything I think that RO levels my playing out as I can think a bit (use some tactics) and catch some of the younger more dexterous folks out (even with my Australian Ping on a 50 person server.

There will always be a place for "simple" games, as some games are made for kids and should be easy to play or relatively simple. Some people don't like getting bogged down in a game that is hard to understand. However, there are those of us who enjoy a complex strategy game and they are being made with some regularity.

Cheers,

[Whacker]

I still owe you a thoughtful response GalvanizedBovine. Will do so soon.

[Bob the Insane]

I think we should recognise the difference between "dumbing-down" and re-envisioning a game...

For Shadowrun for instance, it was not dumbed-down, it was built the way it was always going to be. CounterStrike in the Shadowrun world (or something like it)... I would say it was designed to be simplistic and easy to get into. Groups A and B for doc_bean... This is not Shadowrun dumbed-down, in many ways it is not Shadowrun at all. It is the Shadowrun world re-envisioned for a CS style game. It is a case of buyer beware, if you are a long time Shadowrun fan, this is not what you are expecting it to be...

In most cases dumbed-down requires an orginal version (or standard in the genre) to be suitably complex that it can be dumbed down. So, and no offense meant here, it would be pretty hard to dumb-down the FPS scene considering it's roots in Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM...

However we have the Wargame and the RPG... Orginating from complex desktop games and orginally moving to computers because they could easily handle the rules and the dice rolling for you. And it gave you a player to play against. It could be argued that these have been subject to "dumbing-down" ever since (think RTS and the presently defunct adenture game), every time a development team has tried to make them more appealing to the general public rather than the existiung Wargame and RPG fans.

I suppose when we most take offense is when a developer claims to be making version 2 of a "good" game and it is going to be all things to all people. Just as much fun for the fan base, but also more accessable (one the the scariest terms you can utter to a hardcore gamer, right along with "also released on a console") for the general market.

The hardcore fan sees very quickly which elements of the design have been dropped in favour of development resources being spent in flashy effects and such like.

One point I think is correct is that this is an ever changing situation. If the popularity of gaming continues to grow amoung adults then those niche markets will not be all that small anymore and that will encourage developers to address them individually rather then build games to appeal to the everyone.

But then again, I guess there is an agrument the game always appeals the lowest dominiator in the target audience. Even in a niche wargame, built for complete wargaming freaks (again no offense intended ) there will be decriers claiming something is not deep enough, accurate enough or some vital feature is missing. I guess the accusation of "dumbing-down" comes into play when the previous version had these features and the developer chasing a larger market has dropped this items as unnecessary baggage.

The the question then, should it be the responibility of the developer to make clear that they are not making any updated version of the orginal, but are in fact re-envisioning the game for a larger audience. Or should it be the responsibility of us, the paying consumer to make ourselves aware of what we are purchasing?

I suppose the question in this is marketing. Where does marketing stop and outright lying begin?