63 replies to this topic

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

I've noticed in the past 10+ years, that company's have taken to catering to casual gamers to garner better profits, and from a business standpoint, this makes sense, however I can't help but feel that the business is begining to stagnate due to this idea.

Don't get me wrong, casual's need games too. And don't think this is a console vs pc gaming debate either, as I grew up on the NES, and still to this day play X-box 360. However I can't help but feel that the idea of targeting casual gamers is what's causing the stagnation of gaming as a whole. There's no new ideas, no new imput devices.

When the last EPIC controller was Steel Battalion, you know there's a problem.

Now I can understand company's not wanting to take a risk on a product, but the problem stems in that at this point, they're rarely ever willing to take risks, what happened to the days of 'Make a game, see if it works?" now it's all about "Make CoD 50000000! Everyone buys COD!"

Let's let causal's have their games, but let's not forget the hardcore crowd guys, we're the crowd that's going to pay for that expensive controller packed with your game.

[skamage]

I think their targeting of casuals will be to pay for a premium account since they won't be able to put in the time like a hardcore gamer would. Not really sure how you would adjust the game to make it harder for people since it's all pvp.

[UnexpectedDmg]

what you consider "casuals" are actually the people that really support online games.

They do not hog resources 24x7, tend not to spend effort trying "sploits" that the devs need to deal with, do not burn thru content in days rather than the months it was designed for... and do not look at a game as a religious experience.

The cost of running an online game today would outstrip what it used to be, talend to develop, complexity of infrastructure, talent to maintain, etc.; the days of "make a game, see if it works" when you are looking at a 8 figure bill for a small venture and 10x that for a larger one seems like much more than a "little risk"...

Edited by UnexpectedDmg, 06 July 2012 - 10:34 AM.

[Comguard]

Is this post connected to MWO or just a general rant? What did you expect? A complex situation with 300page manual and a 200€ controller? Where is the point in developing this, who is the audience?

Why is complexity = casual? Often it is just bad game design that made the controls more complex than necessary.

I want that as many people as possible can play Mechwarrior Online and are introduced to Battletech, a franchise laying dormant for too long.

[Butane9000]

I have been catching up reading the Developer blogs and have noticed something. While they are slightly "dumbing down" the game they are not strictly making it a purely casual fling. There will still be a lot of things to keep up with. Heck even the movement will boggle some casual gamers used to standard F2P first person titles.

Hopefully their vision comes out as close as possible to making a giant mech simulator and really catches peoples eyes.

[Vasces Diablo]

The casuals pay for the in depth/complex content that most of them will never see. You should be embracing your casual gaming compatriots and thanking them everytime you unlock some new endgame feature.

CoD does suck though.

Edited by Vasces Diablo, 06 July 2012 - 10:40 AM.

[Project_Mercy]

Avoiding the term casual (which is always open to discussion, and as a result this thread will probably get drowned in that argument, and less on the actual topic) there's sort of two scales which form into a grid you could chart most games on. One axis is "time involvement" and the other is "complexity".

Some people are into complex games, but don't have the time to invest hugely in the game. Other people want something simple, but don't mind dumping tons of hours into it. As you said in the later part of your title "complex games".

As you said, I think it's more a market issue. The share of people who want a complex game seems to be a lot smaller than those who want simple. I mean, the WII isn't known for it's astoundingly thought-provoking gameplay. it has a wand you whip around with a few awkward buttons and attachments on it.

It's also true that it's difficult to make a complex low-time investment game, especially in this day an age when we've gotten rid of manuals and instead expect that you'll be trained via tutorials and in-game systems.

If I were to look at complex games that I play (X3, Crusader Kings, DCS, etc), they're not really something you plop down and kick out for 15 minutes while you wait for the kids to get dressed. They also don't have an astoundingly large market share. Even the Total War games have been dumbed down some as of late.

Jade Kitsune, I think you should give PGI some time on this. If you were to look at their design, it's conceivably possible that the complexity has to do with strategic aspects of the meta-game, and less to do with the tactical aspects of the combat. A complex game doesn't need to be complex in every setting. It just has to be thought provoking as a package. If the meta-game allows strategic complexity for those that wish to partake , while also allowing people to just drop a giant robot and blast in combat; then I think it will be win-win.

Edited by Wraeththix Constantine, 06 July 2012 - 10:41 AM.

[CeeKay Boques]

Accessibilty is a great way to get dollars? That's what happened. The "complex" games are out there, but now they're "niche". Because "nerds" used to be the only customers, and games we were made for us.

What about NON complex awesome games...

[svtman]

Casual Gamer INC:

I am a casual gamer due to being married, having a new born, running my own business, exercise and everything else that comes with keeping a family happy and together. I won't have much time to grind or farm XP and C-Bills so the Legendary Pack is perfect for me due to time constraints.

I'm sure why you are talking about controllers when that isn't what Piranha is responsible for. Piranha can only put out a great game, but it's up to Logitech and others to make the controllers.

You want expensive? Here you go http://www.thrustmas...hotas-warthog-0

[CeeKay Boques]

Wraeththix Constantine, on 06 July 2012 - 10:40 AM, said:

. If you were to look at their design, it's conceivably possible that the complexity has to do with strategic aspects of the meta-game, and less to do with the tactical aspects of the combat. A complex game doesn't need to be complex in every setting. It just has to be thought provoking as a package. If the meta-game allows strategic complexity for those that wish to partake , while also allowing people to just drop a giant robot and blast in combat; then I think it will be win-win.

I hope not, I came for the rock n roll show, not the after party.

[CaveMan]

$$$, $$$, $$$. There's your answer, OP. Games cost a fortune to make these days. If you want your game made, you have to convince investors to support it. Hardcore projects that appeal to a narrow audience don't inspire investor confidence. It's the same reason why we don't have big-budget art films.

I feel your pain, though. I too miss the days when you could find mass-market games that had manuals hundreds of pages long and used every key on the keyboard 2 or 3 times.

At least there's DCS A-10C.

[Project_Mercy]

CaveMan, on 06 July 2012 - 10:47 AM, said:

I feel your pain, though. I too miss the days when you could find mass-market games that had manuals hundreds of pages long and used every key on the keyboard 2 or 3 times.

I still remember the day I bought Falcon 3.0 and came home with that monster, with the cardboard keyboard overlay, and the manual thicker than my dictionary. I felt pretty awesome when I finally took off, flew around, and actually landed without crashing.

I think it's just more a culture thing. We've bred ADHD gamers in the west. In japan and Korea you've got arcade games that are more complex than most of our PC/Console games.

[Vasces Diablo]

Let's look at Diablo 3, shall we?

There is no question that it is much more accessible and gears toward the "casual" player than previous diablo titles. While the forums scream with the agony of the "hardcore" player, bliz sold 6.5 million copies at launch and continues to sell copies.

As time goes by, the casuals will go after the new shiny object and blizzard will slowly crank up the difficulty and complexity to appeal to the hardcore fan base (including those now converted from casual, if you will) just like they did with D2.

5-7 years from now, the hardcores will talk about how they were right all along and the game should have always been like this, without giving a second thought to the fact that the game is still sustainable because of all the people who dumped cash into the game and no longer play.

Do you like all the titles and platforms that you can chose from today? Do you think that's because of a small group of "hardcore" players that devote to a couple of titles and play them for years? Nope, that would be unsustainable. You can thank the "casuals" for the golden age of gamin that we are in.

But again, the current CoD titles do suck. (all you have to do to survive a bullet kids is just hide behind a box for a little while)

[grimzod]

Jade Kitsune, on 06 July 2012 - 10:23 AM, said:

I've noticed in the past 10+ years, that company's have taken to catering to casual gamers to garner better profits, and from a business standpoint, this makes sense, however I can't help but feel that the business is begining to stagnate due to this idea.

Don't get me wrong, casual's need games too. And don't think this is a console vs pc gaming debate either, as I grew up on the NES, and still to this day play X-box 360. However I can't help but feel that the idea of targeting casual gamers is what's causing the stagnation of gaming as a whole. There's no new ideas, no new imput devices.

When the last EPIC controller was Steel Battalion, you know there's a problem.

Now I can understand company's not wanting to take a risk on a product, but the problem stems in that at this point, they're rarely ever willing to take risks, what happened to the days of 'Make a game, see if it works?" now it's all about "Make CoD 50000000! Everyone buys COD!"

Let's let causal's have their games, but let's not forget the hardcore crowd guys, we're the crowd that's going to pay for that expensive controller packed with your game.

Games that cater to a small elite crowd will die, just not enough disposable income among a thousand elitists vs a half million casuals. Games that attract casual paying customers will survive if they are good. Cashflow....

[Project_Mercy]

grimzod, on 06 July 2012 - 11:01 AM, said:

Games that cater to a small elite crowd will die, just not enough disposable income among a thousand elitists vs a half million casuals. Games that attract casual paying customers will survive if they are good. Cashflow....

I disagree with this statement. Eve caters to a pretty hardcore crowd. It's about the least casual friendly game I've ever known. It does OK. They picked a market, they catered to that market, and they've done OK. Eve will never be a CoD, but their market is pretty stable. It's a fallacy brought on by an irrational system for classifying success in the current market, that causes people to view a lack of sustained growth as failure.

[Teirdome]

The issue is that creating a modern game is stupidly expensive. It takes more time to create the higher quality textures we want, not to mention the models, animations, and netcode to power these multiplayer experiences. No sane publisher is going to drop $100 million on a game type that has never been proven. Hell, they aren't going to drop that kind of money on a new intellectual property either.

Additionally, the less complex game types have become more popular. First person shooters are very basic. You move and interact with the world via your weapon's sights. Third person generally adds a silly cover system for one extra thing to manage.

At this point it's up to the indie space to expand the boundaries of what publishers are going to risk money on. Look at the number of minecraft iterations that the big studios have been slowly showing (the names escape me at the moment, but both EA and Activision have their version in development). If you want more complex games, spend some cash on a good indie title (Endless Space that was recently released, or buy Arma 2 for DayZ).

[Steadfast]

For complex games - try boardgames.

[Cmdr Rad]

.... Generally speaking, it isn't just marketing, design has changed. Things have become more streamlined, to allow a person to accomplish more than one thing at a time. This is reflected not only in games, but in controls for various machines as well, many of the options becoming automated.

Further, Complexity doesn't necessarily equal fun, or even better efficiency. Anyone Weld here? Do you remember any of the welders from the 80s, that let you modify the sin wave of the power for your arc in all sorts of ways? Notice how most of those ***** are gone (except for TIG)? That's because adding all the complex power controls lead to decreased weld quality. Welders began second guessing themselves as they adjusted features they didn't understand completely, altering their natural flow and style. The same can be said for being given a million options on the front end of a game, and for a new player not being able to understand these features... then they start playing around with the *****, and if they don't take the time to learn it, they're probably going to get killed easily, their fun begins to decrease, and they quit the game, meaning losing a potential customer.

Simply put, you don't want front-loaded complexity. That said, I wouldn't mind having some command prompt to modify various settings flags in the background, much like Valve's console commands.

As for the controller... HARDWARE IS EXPENSIVE. DEAL WITH IT. It all comes down to what hardware is in the average gamer's household. You then design around that for your game. That's how Console Wars are generally decided, as Publishers will go with the console that has the largest installed base, assuming they'll have access to the large number of customers.

A silver lining to the hardware argument though is: Mech games are making a comeback. We have this and we have Hawken. They both encourage people to use joystick + additional hardware. If you want to make a difference Jade, go buy a new joystick. Encourage all other players to buy a new joystick. You need to become a lobbyist for joysticks. Once enough people have bought joysticks, there will be a large enough market demographic that game designers can approach their investors and say "HEY, THESE PEOPLE OWN A JOYSTICK, LETS SUPPORT/CENTER OUR GAME AROUND IT".

Also, the argument that you make towards PGI is pretty silly, about us being the "hardcore crowd buying the expensive controller". PGI doesn't get any money from controllers

[IronGoat]

Jade Kitsune, on 06 July 2012 - 10:23 AM, said:

I've noticed in the past 10+ years, that company's have taken to catering to casual gamers to garner better profits, and from a business standpoint, this makes sense, however I can't help but feel that the business is begining to stagnate due to this idea.

Don't get me wrong, casual's need games too. And don't think this is a console vs pc gaming debate either, as I grew up on the NES, and still to this day play X-box 360. However I can't help but feel that the idea of targeting casual gamers is what's causing the stagnation of gaming as a whole. There's no new ideas, no new imput devices.

When the last EPIC controller was Steel Battalion, you know there's a problem.

Now I can understand company's not wanting to take a risk on a product, but the problem stems in that at this point, they're rarely ever willing to take risks, what happened to the days of 'Make a game, see if it works?" now it's all about "Make CoD 50000000! Everyone buys COD!"

Let's let causal's have their games, but let's not forget the hardcore crowd guys, we're the crowd that's going to pay for that expensive controller packed with your game.

i agree whole heartedly the casual gamer in my mind ISNT a person with limited time to play what he loves, but a person that just plays to kill some time or get some jollies. ( these are also often the ones chastising others for "not having a real life" or "wasting real money on stupid computer game") these players for the most part DONT spend big money and dont stay loyal to any one game. they move as the newest thng comes out. i feel catering to the the casual gamer over the hardcorp gamer is a matter of "penny wise and pound foolish"

i sincerely doubt any real casual gamers just dropped 30-120$ on an unreleased game.

BTW i dont mean this post to sound like i think MWO will by default NOt be complex and engaging. just commenting on the business model of whom to cater to.

Edited by IronGoat, 06 July 2012 - 11:31 AM.

[Thalas]

Pretty sure this will be an "awesome complex game".