Difficulty Curve? Attention Spans changing?

[Stark]

Yeah but games like Super Meat Boy (which is insanely hard, don't get me wrong) are automatically not as hard as most of the games in the NES-era where not only was the game hard but you get 3 lives to do it in. Super Meat Boy expects you to die, it's part of the game, you just start the level over ad infinitum.

[Menegrothx]

And both control perfectly and don't generally have any technical problems which would make playing the games harder

[isiolia]

I think it's generally a product of games adapting to take advantage of better technology.

Relative to today, earlier games were doing what they could with a miniscule amount of storage, RAM, processing power, and so on.

Consider the practical side of difficulty. In the arcade, it would keep players pumping quarters into the machine, or freeing it up for the next customer that would. At home, it meant taking what would otherwise be 45 minutes of repeating sprites and such into something that could take weeks of practice to conquer.

Now, we have games that can take tens of hours to work through while making constant progress. That's a completely different set of design possibilities and challenges.

[JayJaySut]

No more "I ran out of lives now I gotta start over"

Is that really a bad thing? A lot of new games are tedious and repetitive but having to replay the same area that you've already beaten over and over again is also pretty tedious after a while.

[noiseredux]

But, on most retro games (minus rpg's of course) There was the once you die, you die--beat the game in once sitting (or use passwords) system. Today players have no fear of 'losing' in games. You die, you take a (usually) very tiny penalty and go on as if nothing had happened. Older games took practice to beat. Newer games just seem to take perseverence. If you keep playing, you WILL beat the game, period. No more "I ran out of lives now I gotta start over"

I was thinking about this recently, as I seriously got a GAME OVER playing XCOM Enemy Unknown and was like "woah, when does that happen in games nowadays?"

[JayJaySut]

Let me just think of a list of somewhat recent games that don't hold your hand and let you figure it out for yourself:

Portal, Braid, Super Meat Boy, Fez, Hotline Miami (It has a tutorial but it's only basic controls). Also yes I know there mostly Indie games but that's just what I've been playing lately.

You also forget that a lot of modern games NEED some kind of tutorial because of there complexity. I know there are a lot of kids out there who don't want to play a game because it's too hard or the graphics suck, but I also know a lot of teenagers who enjoy retro games and difficult games. All I can say is either give them some time to get wiser or look past it because there probably are lots of other kids out there who aren't going to have those complaints. I don't think it's a case of old gamer vs young gamer I think its a case of inexperienced casual gamer vs experienced serious gamer, a lot of those kids would have the same complaints about Dark Souls.

[Gamerforlife]

But, on most retro games (minus rpg's of course) There was the once you die, you die--beat the game in once sitting (or use passwords) system. Today players have no fear of 'losing' in games. You die, you take a (usually) very tiny penalty and go on as if nothing had happened. Older games took practice to beat. Newer games just seem to take perseverence. If you keep playing, you WILL beat the game, period. No more "I ran out of lives now I gotta start over"

Some people think it's weird how when I play games I obsess over things like S ranking stages, collecting all items, beating hard mode, getting all trophies, etc.

It's exactly because of what you're stating here. Simply BEATING a lot of modern games doesn't feel like a huge accomplishment anymore. Yeah, I beat it, so did everyone else who played it. I need to do something else to get a sense of accomplishment.

Sometimes I'll create my own personal challenges, like no damage runs

[TheGregzilla]

No more "I ran out of lives now I gotta start over"

Is that really a bad thing? A lot of new games are tedious and repetitive but having to replay the same area that you've already beaten over and over again is also pretty tedious after a while.

If the game is good enough, it wont matter though. Wanna know how many times Ive played/beaten SMB3,Sonic 2, Legend of Zelda (nes) Super Mario 64 etc etc? Too many to count. Hell ive probably beaten Super Mario Bros 150+times and I still play it from time to time. Its a good, fun game. Although I have experienced it in basically every way possible, Its good enough I want to replay it. The problem with new games is they are tedious and repetetive AND you have to replay the same area over and over in a lot of games. There has always been grinding in video games, but modern games take it to an extreme. Games requiring 20+ hours of the game just spent on grinding and not actually advancing story at all? Ridiculous.

[TheGregzilla]

[quote=]
Let me just think of a list of somewhat recent games that don't hold your hand and let you figure it out for yourself:

Portal, Braid, Super Meat Boy, Fez, Hotline Miami (It has a tutorial but it's only basic controls). Also yes I know there mostly Indie games but that's just what I've been playing lately.

You also forget that a lot of modern games NEED some kind of tutorial because of there complexity. I know there are a lot of kids out there who don't want to play a game because it's too hard or the graphics suck, but I also know a lot of teenagers who enjoy retro games and difficult games. All I can say is either give them some time to get wiser or look past it because there probably are lots of other kids out there who aren't going to have those complaints. I don't think it's a case of old gamer vs young gamer I think its a case of inexperienced casual gamer vs experienced serious gamer, a lot of those kids would have the same complaints about Dark Souls.[/quote]


I think the problem is becoming the definition of 'experienced serious gamer'.

Look around the internet and even ask around with a general crowd of video game players. Younger gamers (and even some adults) Seem to think serious gamers play

(and almost exclusively from my experience..)
-Call of Duty
-Oblivion/Skryim (with mentions of the older games bringing in cries about graphics..)
-League of Legends/World of Warcraft
-Forza (and similar racing titles)
-Madden

This is from 90% of the people Ive ever talked to video games about. These are the so called 'serious games for real gamers.' And just a glance around the internet shows the same.

[Stark]

If the game is good enough, it wont matter though.

Exactly and if you haven't found that in modern gaming then you need to keep looking, because it's there. The already mentioned Super Meat Boy is a perfect example of this. As are Rayman Origins, Hotline Miami, and Guacamelee. They exist, just ask this community, we'll tell you which ones they are.