{"id":1457,"date":"2017-10-03T15:34:53","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T15:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/?p=1457"},"modified":"2017-10-03T15:42:54","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T15:42:54","slug":"on-difficulty-in-videogames","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/2017\/10\/03\/on-difficulty-in-videogames\/","title":{"rendered":"On difficulty in Videogames"},"content":{"rendered":"

https:\/\/www.rockpapershotgun.com\/2017\/10\/02\/assassins-creed-origins-tourism-difficulty\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Okay, here’s an argument which pops up\u00a0all the time<\/em> which I completely reject:<\/p>\n

Do we have some arbitrary test in the middle of a movie which locks you out from seeing the end if you don’t pass? No. So why should these barriers exist in videogames?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Replace “movie” with “book”, “album”, whatever other medium you wish. I reject this almost entirely\u00a0though –\u00a0almost<\/em> because I can, at least, appreciate the sentiment behind it – because, fundamentally, videogames are\u00a0utterly<\/em> unlike any of those things. You may as well replace the word “movie” with “brick”. Yes, there are many similarities too – videogames share commonality with\u00a0movies often in terms of narrative, storytelling, etc. But your framework is entirely out of whack when you’re comparing passive experiences with active ones.\u00a0It’d be more appropriate (but also far from perfect) to compare videogames to sports activities – would we criticise playing football in terms of\u00a0not everyone getting the same out of the activity? Some people score more goals than others,\u00a0many people regularly lose. Okay okay, football is a team game and many games are single-player, but almost all games\u00a0share with sports the principles of having a playfield, a set of rules, and a goal to accomplish<\/strong>. Not so with movies, books, or going to a concert and this alone separates videogames from those by a\u00a0mighty<\/em> canyon. For heaven’s sake, that difference is fundamental to what makes videogames so unique, interesting, and varied.<\/p>\n

The problem, to me, really just comes down to the progress made technically with videogames. Because it’s now possible to deliver high-fidelity visuals, oftentimes employing actors who also work in film, we’ve confused the two media. Games\u00a0look<\/em> a lot like films now, so they must\u00a0act<\/em> a lot like films too. No. No – no – no. They\u00a0can<\/em>, but they\u00a0should<\/em> do no such thing.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0only<\/em> thing a game\u00a0should<\/em> do, is\u00a0be effective in\u00a0providing the experience intended regardless of what that experience is. You might find a game good or bad accordingly – to your taste or otherwise.\u00a0It’s no more wrong to design your game to be challenging as it is to design your game to be easy. One may appeal to you and the other may not. But\u00a0just because the game has a story does not mean that the game is designed for people to be able to simply passively enjoy it – that the story is just some oil in the water of gameplay that we can extract and allow to be enjoyed in isolation. That those things aren’t fundamentally and inexorably interwoven. If they aren’t, you’re probably looking at a badly designed videogame.<\/p>\n

If you do<\/em> want to design your game to be like that, I won’t criticise that either. You do what you want, whatever you think best. I’ll support your right to navigate your way through the ocean of design possibilities in whichever way you choose. Some ways may be more profitable than others, appeal to a more mainstream audience. Whatever.\u00a0Make your decision based on whatever criteria you choose – who am I to tell you you’re wrong?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

https:\/\/www.rockpapershotgun.com\/2017\/10\/02\/assassins-creed-origins-tourism-difficulty\/ Okay, here’s an argument which pops up\u00a0all the time which I completely reject: Do we have some arbitrary test in the middle of a movie which locks you out from seeing the end if you don’t pass? No. So why should these barriers exist in videogames? Replace “movie” with “book”, “album”, whatever other medium…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games","category-rants"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p326tq-nv","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1457"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1460,"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457\/revisions\/1460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}