Year of the casual gamer.

[Grumbold]

Never underestimate games that non-gaes players can get drawn into without needing to know a plethora of rules. Especially if they can run on a work PC and allow you to Alt-Tab

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DrSpike


Well if you ever read my serious posts on this ( ) you'd know there are 2 separate but related trends.

Btw I don't know anything about Myst4 so tell me why is it is lumped with those Tycoon/Sim games.

Oh, i admit the puzzles are hard. I suppose ANY one of those games could appeal to at least SOME serious gamers. More that these are the games that are typically played by the kind of people who only play one game, and arent particularly deep into gaming. Myst I think was even included free with some PC's some time back.

Maybe game for the 'mass market' would have been more accurate.

I certainly get the distinction between casual/family/mass market games and the phenomenon of dumbing down of games in more "hardcore" genres, like FPS or TBS. I was referring to the former here.

And Im not saying its a bad thing. One hopes that some of the people who play these will move on to deeper games.

[DrSpike]

Indeed we must hope so.

[lord of the mark]

Thats been one of the areas of concern for wargames for example. With few PG style beer and pretzel games, what brings new people into the hobby? Some have replied that due to massive computer power, many of the "deep games" can be played without looking to deep under the hood, and so are suitable as entry level games. Im not sure. In any case the problem in that genre is distribution - with no games in stores, will people who arent already interested in the hobby search out games on the net?

[DrSpike]

Yeah fair points LotM, but once was enough.

Edit: Damn your editing!

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Yeah fair points LotM, but once was enough.

Edit: Damn your editing!

Im so glad we still have the edit feature


I thought the first post had gotten lost. I would have deleted the second one, but that didnt work - my account must still be screwed up somehow. So i figured i might as well add some more substance while I was at it.


I suppose I could have just put in a smiley

[lord of the mark]

[Zero]

casual game for the hardcore genre are aite. Even though some harcorist hate them to death for being so casual.

It does attract players and it does add to the community. And from there they have higher cahnce of jumping into games that are far better in that same genre.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Zero
casual game for the hardcore genre are aite. Even though some harcorist hate them to death for being so casual.

It does attract players and it does add to the community. And from there they have higher cahnce of jumping into games that are far better in that same genre.

Zero, have you ever considered playing "Mavis Bacon teaches Typing"?

[Sandman]

Nothing wrong with casual gamers. Or indeed, 'dumbing down'. It's absolutely vital that there is some force standing in the way of mindless feature creep and self-destructive elitism.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Sandman
Nothing wrong with casual gamers. Or indeed, 'dumbing down'. It's absolutely vital that there is some force standing in the way of mindless feature creep and self-destructive elitism.

quoth the person who is about to return Crusader Kings.

Really feel burnt, eh?

[Sandman]

Yes.

But less IS sometimes more. Elitist gamers won't see it that way; it's their elite status on the line.

[Jamski]

But mostly less is just that - less.

The only time more is bad, is when it is unclearly documented, or running too many complicated formulas "under the hood"

Take SMAC - it has a lot more than Civ - but all the numbers are reachable, understandable... you can work with these numbers to improve your skills at this game.

But take MoO3 - it has more still than SMAC, but the numbers are hidden, recessed and involve ugly decimals everywhere... you can't use these numbers... there's too much to handle.

On the other hand there is Civ3, which has LESS than SMAC, and suffers heavily as a result.

Let's be honest. We like games with lots of maths that we can manage ourselves. It makes us feel smart

-Jam

[Sandman]

The only time more is bad, is when it is unclearly documented, or running too many complicated formulas "under the hood"

Well, if it's confusing certainly. But I also think that if it adds nothing to the game, it's bad. An example would be the resting in the BG series. Why not just give the party spell regeneration? Of course, that's what they did in KOTOR, and rightly so IMO.

On the other hand there is Civ3, which has LESS than SMAC, and suffers heavily as a result.

I dunno. What about eras, civ traits and culture?

Eras were a fine example of pointless flab on a perfectly good system. If one was really desperate to constrict unhistorical tech progress they could just have reworked the tech tree.

Culture took the border idea from SMAC and complicated it. Not very successfully or logically, in my view.

Let's be honest. We like games with lots of maths that we can manage ourselves. It makes us feel smart

It should add to the gameplay, not just gamer egos. For the long-term good of the genre.

[DrSpike]

I agree with Jamski...........less is usually less. Having said that I don't think Civ3 is a bad SP game, since there are some nice additions, and the fact that the core gameplay is simplified as compared to Civ2 and SMAC makes the AI more competitive. However I don't think it's a really compelling argument that less is more through AI limitations, though some would consider it so.

Less is only ever more in actuality if you can remove the bathwater of unnecessary complexity without throwing out the baby of depth. This is very hard to do.