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beginners are critics and critics are beginners

💨 tl;dr

Modern game design panders to beginners, simplifying mechanics and reducing difficulty to appeal to a broader audience. This frustrates veteran players and leads to a lack of depth in games, pushing experts towards speedrunning and challenge runs. Critics often lack deep understanding of complex game design, further perpetuating this trend.

💡 Key Ideas

• Modern game design and critique heavily favor beginners and casual players, leading to simplified mechanics and reduced difficulty.
• High production costs push developers to appeal to a broader audience, including non-players, resulting in homogenized gameplay.
• Many mainstream game critics, often beginners themselves, prefer games with mass appeal and lack deep understanding of complex game design.
• Veteran players and experts are often frustrated by the simplification and lack of mechanical complexity in modern games.
• Remakes and proposed changes to games (e.g., adding easy modes) often frustrate veteran fans by undermining the original design.
• The trend towards lower difficulty and pandering to players has led to a lack of depth in modern games, driving expert players towards speedrunning and challenge runs.
• Dynamic performance metrics like scoring and leaderboards are crucial for maintaining game depth and longevity.
• Accessibility in game design should provide tools and resources to help players overcome challenges without compromising the game's intrinsic difficulty.
• FPS games are an exception to beginner-focused design due to the high skill level of their player base, allowing for more innovative design.
• Western gamers, particularly in FPS games, generally possess high legacy skills, enabling more challenging and interesting game design.
• Modern Japanese games are increasingly adopting Western design elements.

🎓 Lessons Learnt

• Understand the impact of beginner bias in game design: Modern games often favor new players to maximize appeal, but this can dilute challenge and depth.

• Recognize the consequences of simplified game mechanics: Simplifying games to make them marketable often reduces their complexity and challenge.

• Acknowledge the homogenization trend: Many games mimic successful formulas to attract broader audiences, leading to stale and repetitive designs.

• Be aware of cognitive dissonance in game reviews: There’s a disconnect between positive reviews and the sentiment that modern games are often boring.

• Question the authenticity of game critique: Reviews may not reflect broader dissatisfaction, suggesting a disconnect within the gaming community.

• Critics need to develop a deep understanding of game mechanics: Effective critique requires analyzing how gameplay mechanics function in practice, not just superficially describing them.

• Game reviews should go beyond catering to beginners: Critics should appreciate and evaluate complex game designs, not just simplify for new players.

• Unique control schemes deserve fair evaluation: Games with unique controls, like Star Fox Zero, should be given a fair chance and thoroughly understood before critique.

• Critics should be open-minded towards diverse game designs: Reviewers should embrace different game designs, highlighting their strengths rather than sticking to mainstream preferences.

• Risky and bold game designs should be valued: Critics should recognize and appreciate innovation in game design, even if it deviates from familiar formulas.

• Critics should withstand pushback and maintain their stance: Honesty in reviews is crucial, and critics should stand by their genuine opinions despite criticism.

• Gatekeeping is unavoidable in game critique: Value judgments and comparisons are a natural part of reviewing games.

• Indirect critiques are inherent in suggestions: Proposing changes to a game often implies criticism of its current design.

• Remakes often undermine original designs: Simplifying classic games in remakes can unfairly suggest that the original designs were flawed.

• Persistent new player bias hinders game design: Over-catering to beginners can punish experienced players and stifle innovation.

• Not all games need to cater to beginners: Challenging games that respect and push legacy skills are valid and important.

• Legacy skill was crucial in arcade design: Arcade games kept expert players engaged, rewarding skill to encourage continued play.

• Current game design often punishes skilled players: Many modern games lack the depth needed to challenge experienced players.

• Speedrunning and challenge runs fill the depth gap: Players create their own challenges to find depth in modern game design.

• Dynamic performance metrics add depth: Scoring, ranks, leaderboards, and achievements are crucial for long-term engagement.

• Avoid removing dynamic performance metrics in games: Elements like timers enhance challenge and decision-making.

• Understand the impact of accessibility on artistic content: Adding easy modes can dilute a game’s artistic value, similar to simplifying high literature.

• Recognize the trade-off between accessibility and game design integrity: Making games more accessible can boost sales but may compromise depth and challenge.

• Appreciate the role of difficulty in game longevity: Games like Dark Souls remain popular by deeply engaging players through challenge.

• Difficulty can enhance a game’s long-term respect and memorability: Sticking to challenging designs can lead to greater appreciation over time.

• Difficulty is intrinsic to game design, not to be confused with accessibility: Difficulty is part of a game’s artistic content, while accessibility involves tools to engage with the game.

• True gaming accessibility involves providing useful tools and options: Features like practice modes and save states help players tackle a game’s difficulty.

• Legacy skill should be considered in accessibility discussions: Experienced players should have access to higher difficulty settings without being forced through easier modes.

• FPS games maintain high difficulty due to a skilled player base: Western gamers’ legacy skill in FPS games allows these genres to remain challenging and innovative.

• Western players excel in shooter games: Even casual shooter players in the American fan base are highly skilled, making FPS a strong genre for challenging game design.

• Traditional action games lack challenging design: Compared to shooters, traditional action games are often less challenging, which is seen as a significant loss.

🌚 Conclusion

The focus on beginner-friendly design dilutes game complexity and challenge, alienating experienced players. Critics need to appreciate and evaluate complex game mechanics, and developers should balance accessibility with maintaining game depth and integrity. FPS games remain an exception due to their skilled player base.

In-Depth

All Key Ideas

Observations on Modern Game Design

• There is a prevalent bias towards new players in game design and critique
• Good game design is often equated with catering to beginners or casual players
• Beginner-focused games have become the majority of the market
• High production costs drive developers to target a broader audience, including non-players
• This shift has led to a reduction in mechanical complexity and difficulty in games
• Homogenization of gameplay mechanics is another result of this shift
• There is a cognitive dissonance in game reviews versus general discussion on game design
• Many gaming YouTubers express dissatisfaction with modern game design in essays but give positive reviews

Criticisms of Mainstream Game Critics

• Beginner design flows towards simplification, praised by mainstream reviews.
• Critics are often beginners, leading to a bias towards mass appeal.
• Critics lack understanding of artistic aspects of game design, focusing on their feelings and ease.
• Critics dismiss challenging and unique game designs.
• Lack of critical analysis of gameplay mechanics among game critics.
• Critics favor derivative and familiar designs, avoiding complex ones.
• Developers are commercially punished for complex designs that scare away beginners.
• Mainstream game critics are not radically accepting or open-minded towards all games.
• Game critics often tell the masses what they want to hear and fold under pushback.

Key Points in Game Critique and Design

• Gatekeeping in game critique is inevitable and necessary for analysis
• Making value judgments is essential for meaningful game comparison
• Proposing changes to a game (e.g., Dark Souls adding an easy mode) implies a critique of its original design
• Remakes often simplify original designs, frustrating veteran fans
• Critiques that a game is too basic or derivative are often dismissed
• Persistent new player bias hampers legacy skill and stagnates game design
• Modern game design overly focuses on beginners, ignoring legacy skill and expert players
• Classic games challenged expert players to maintain their interest and spending
• Modern games lack depth for skilled players, leading to the rise of speedrunning and challenge runs
• Dynamic performance metrics (scoring, ranks, leaderboards) are crucial for game depth and longevity
• Criticizing games for lacking depth is often seen as unreasonable

Trends and Perspectives on Game Difficulty

• Mainstream games of the past had internal performance systems and ranks, now mostly ignored
• Super Mario Bros. removed the timer to reduce difficulty and decision-making burden on players
• The trend in gaming is towards pandering to players and lowering difficulty
• Accessibility in games, while important, is often used as a vague moralistic term
• Difficulty in games is considered artistic content, similar to complex language in high literature
• Adding easy modes to difficult games like Dark Souls undermines their artistic and design integrity
• Dark Souls' lack of an official easy mode has pushed players to engage with higher difficulty, contributing to its longevity and influence

Game Design and Accessibility

• Difficulty is considered artistic content and essential to game design.
• True accessibility in game design involves providing players with tools and resources to overcome challenges.
• Accessibility options should include features like stage select, save states, and practice modes.
• There is a distinction between difficulty and accessibility; difficulty is intrinsic to game design, while accessibility helps players engage with it.
• FPS games are an exception to beginner-focused design due to the high skill level of their player base.
• Western gamers generally possess high legacy skills in FPS games, allowing for more innovative design in this genre.

Observations on Gaming Trends

• Casual shooter players in the American fan base are amazingly good.
• Interesting, bold, difficult design in Western gaming is mostly found in FPS and Shooters.
• Traditional action games do not feature as much interesting design anymore.
• Japanese games are becoming more westernized.

All Lessons Learnt

Key Points in Modern Game Design Critique

• Understand the impact of beginner bias in game design: Game design heavily favors new and casual players due to high production costs and the need for mass appeal.
• Recognize the consequences of simplified game mechanics: The reduction in mechanical complexity and survival difficulty makes games more marketable but less challenging.
• Acknowledge the homogenization trend: Many games now follow familiar formulas, like Dark Souls clones, to attract a wider audience, which can make game design feel stale.
• Be aware of cognitive dissonance in game reviews: There's a gap between the general critical sentiment about modern games being boring and the overwhelmingly positive reviews they receive.
• Question the authenticity of game critique: Reviews often soft-ball current games despite widespread dissatisfaction in broader discussions, indicating a possible disconnect in the gaming community.

Guidelines for Game Critics

• Critics need to develop a deep understanding of game mechanics: Critics should invest time to understand and analyze the gameplay mechanics and how they function in practice, rather than just describing them superficially.
• Game reviews should go beyond catering to beginners: Critics should not just focus on simplifying games for beginners but should appreciate and critically evaluate complex and challenging game designs.
• Unique control schemes deserve fair evaluation: Critics should not dismiss games with unique control schemes, like Star Fox Zero, without giving them a fair chance and understanding their mechanics.
• Critics should be open-minded towards diverse game designs: Game critics should strive to be open-minded and accepting of different game designs, explaining their strengths rather than just catering to mainstream preferences.
• Risky and bold game designs should be valued: Instead of gravitating towards familiar and derivative designs, critics should recognize the value and innovation in risky and bold game designs.
• Critics should withstand pushback and maintain their stance: Game critics should be more resilient and not easily retract their reviews under pressure, maintaining their honest opinions even if they face criticism.

Key Points in Game Critique and Design

• Gatekeeping is unavoidable in game critique - It's a natural process that happens through value judgments and comparisons.
• Indirect critiques are inherent in suggestions - Proposing changes to games implicitly criticizes current designs (e.g., suggesting an easy mode for Dark Souls implies it's too hard).
• Remakes often undermine original designs - Simplifying classic games in remakes can lead to the perception that original designs were flawed.
• Persistent new player bias hinders game design - Catering excessively to beginners punishes experienced players and stifles innovation.
• Not all games need to cater to beginners - It's valid for developers to create challenging games that respect and push legacy skills.
• Legacy skill was crucial in arcade design - Arcade games rewarded expert players to keep them engaged and spending money.
• Current game design often punishes skilled players - Many modern games are too simple and don't offer enough depth for experienced players.
• Speedrunning and challenge runs fill the depth gap - Players create their own challenges due to lack of depth in modern game design.
• Dynamic performance metrics add depth - Scoring, ranks, leaderboards, and achievements are important for creating long-term engagement.

Key Considerations in Game Design

• Avoid removing dynamic performance metrics in games: Removing elements like timers can make games less challenging and reduce decision-making for players.
• Understand the impact of accessibility on artistic content: Adding easy modes to difficult games can dilute their artistic value, similar to simplifying high literature.
• Recognize the trade-off between accessibility and game design integrity: Making games more accessible can increase sales but may compromise the depth and challenge that define the game's unique appeal.
• Appreciate the role of difficulty in game longevity: Games like Dark Souls maintain long-term popularity by challenging players to engage deeply with the game design.

Key Points on Game Difficulty and Accessibility

• Difficulty can enhance a game's long-term respect and memorability - If developers stick to their guns on challenging game design, despite initial backlash, players often come to appreciate and respect the game more over time.
• Difficulty is intrinsic to game design, not to be confused with accessibility - Difficulty is a core part of the game's artistic content, while accessibility means providing tools and resources for players to engage with the game effectively.
• True gaming accessibility involves providing useful tools and options - Real accessibility features include things like practice modes, save states, and stage selects, which help players work through a game's difficulty.
• Legacy skill should be considered in accessibility discussions - Experienced players should not be forced to play through easier modes and should have immediate access to higher difficulty settings.
• FPS games maintain high difficulty due to a skilled player base - Western gamers have a strong legacy skill in FPS games, allowing these games to retain challenging and innovative designs without being dumbed down.

Observations on Gaming Trends

• Western players excel in shooter games: Even casual shooter players in the American fan base are exceptionally skilled, making FPS and shooter genres the go-to for bold and difficult game design in Western gaming.
• Traditional action games lack challenging design: Compared to shooters, traditional action games are not as challenging anymore, which is seen as a significant loss in the gaming landscape.